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They saw tlie Equator making off, a mile or two away 






THE RUNAWAY 
EQUATOR 

And the Strange Adventures of a 
Little Boy in Pursuit of It 


BY 

LILIAN BELL 

** 

AUTHOR OF “THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF AN OLD MAID,” 
“THE EXPATRIATES.” “ABROAD WITH THE JIMMIES,” 
“HOPE LORING,” “AT HOME WITH THE JARDINES,” ETC. 

Illustrated by 

PETER NEWELL 


• » 

•> > * 

NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 




Copgright, 1010, 1911, by 
The Curtis Publishing Company 

Copyright, 1911, by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 

All rights resen'ed, inrlnding that of translation into foreign 
languages, including the Scandinavian 



Cci.A203937 


TO 

JIMMIE BELL, JUNIOR 

SECOND INFANTRY, U. S. A. 







CONTENTS 

CHAPTER page 

I. In WHICH Billy Meets Nimbus ... 3 

II. The Enchanted Troli^y Car ... 13 

III. The Equator Is Loose 23 

IV. The Equine Ox and the Evening Star 37 

V. In Pursuit 47 

VI. On the Passive Volcano ..... 55 

VII. Jack Frost 63 

VLII. The Compass 73 ^ 

IX. The Trail of the Runaway .... 83 

X. Where Night Is Six Months Long . 93 

XI. The End of the Chase 105 

XII. Across the Rainbow 115 



ILLUSTRATIONS 


‘‘they saw the equator making off a mile or two away” 

Frontispiece 

Facing 

Page 

“we’ll take this sunbeam with us” 6*^ 

“nimbus folded the transfer into a tiny wand and said: 

‘this car for the equator!’ ” 10 4^ 

'“both the plumber’s apprentices jumped hastily to the 

ground” 14 f 

“straight into a great pile of snow went the car” . 28 ^ 

“presently they began to cry as hard as ever they 

could” 32 

“now, sir, where is that equator?” 40 

“there suddenly appeared seven little chaps” . . . 48 

“wiTPI A GREAT CRACKLING NOISE THEY SHOT INTO THE VOId” 50 
“billy took a sharp stick and poked the equator smartly” 60 
“seating himself on the edge of the cliff, he sang” . 66*^ 

“confronting the equine ox was the conductor, waving 


his hands and shouting” 76*^ 

“they tied the trolley rope to his horn and secured him ' 

TO THE car” 78 

“a meteor dropped among them” 80 

“ ‘listen,’ said the equine ox, and throwing back his 
HEAD, HE sang” 84 

”... 90 ^ 


“the EQUINE ox CROWDED INTO THE REAR DOOR 


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THE RUNAWAY 
EQUATOR 


CHAPTER I 

IN WHICH BILI.Y MEETS NIMBUS 

M other had been helping Billy with his geog- 
raphy lesson, sitting in the garden on a lovely day 
early in spring, and showing Billy how the earth 
revolves on its axis. To illustrate this difficult matter and 
to make it interesting, she had taken a big yellow orange to 
represent the Earth and had used a stick of lemon candy 
for the Pole. She made the Equator out of a black rubber 
band such as you put around fat envelopes. 

Then, when Billy said that he understood. Mother dug 
a hole in the orange and stuck the lemon stick in it and, 
handing it to Billy, said with a droll twinkle in her blue 
eyes, which always seemed to be laughing: 

“Would you like to eat up the Earth through the 
North Pole?’’ 

Now Billy had never before tasted the joys of an orange 
eaten through a stick of lemon candy; so when Mother, 
who had a trick of remembering nice things from her own 

3 


4 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


childhood, showed Billy how it was done, he settled down 
to a blissful half hour in which he meant to devour the 
whole earth. 

It tasted so good that he rolled over on the short grass, 
under a lilac-bush in full bloom, and only took his lips from 
the North Pole long enough to tell his mother that it tasted 
“bully.” 

“Well,” said his mother, standing up and shaking out 
her blue dress, “I must go now. Here is your geography. 
Don’t forget to bring it in when you come, and don’t lose 
the Equator off the Earth, even if you are eating it. I 
don’t know what would become of us if the Equator really 
should get away!” 

Billy laughed aloud. It really was no trouble at all to 
understand things when JMother made them appear so 
funny. 

He lay on his back looking up into the sk}^, which was 
just the color of his mother’s blue dress. White clouds, 
like mountains of white feathers which must be very soft 
to sleep on, were over his head. 

A bee was buzzing lazily over the lavender blossoms of 
the lilacs. A soft wind was blowing. It was indeed very 
pleasant. 

What if the bee should turn into a fairy! 

“Why don’t you?” said Billy aloud. 

The bee, being puzzled, scratched his head with his left 
hindfoot and answered: 


BILLY MEETS NIMBUS 


5 


“Why don’t I what?” 

“Why don’t you be one?” 

“I am one bee!” answered the bee, striking a match on 
Billy’s orange and lighting a grapevine cigarette. 

“Could you be a fairy?” asked Billy. 

“I am always beeing things — flowers and honey — so 
of course I could bee a fairy. How do you know that I 
am not one? Look at me!” 

Billy sat up and looked. 

“Well, I never!” exclaimed Billy. “A minute ago I 
thought you were a bee!” 

“I can bee anything I choose,” said the Fairy. “That’s 
why you thought I was a bee. Because I can bee!” 

“Who are you now?” asked Billy. 

“I am the Geography Fairy,” answered the stranger. 

He held out his hand and then looked at it. 

“It’s not raining yet,” he observed; “still ” 

Without finishing his sentence he unfolded a pink para- 
sol and tossed it into the air. It sailed away, slowly at 
first, then more rapidly as the light wind caught it and 
carried it out of sight beyond the lilac-bush. 

“I won’t need it till it begins to rain,” he explained, 
“so they might as well have it.” 

“Who?” gasped Billy. 

“The sunbeams. If a sunbeam gets wet he’s done for. 
Haven’t you ever noticed that?” 

Billy thought he had noticed something of the kind.. 


6 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


Anyway the sunbeams all disappeared directly it began to 
rain. But being just an ordinary little boy, he was much 
more interested in the conversation of the wonderful 
stranger than he was in sunbeams, and that is why he 
asked : 

“What is your name, if you please?” 

“JNIy name is Nimbus and I live in the clouds with 
the other fairies. I was named after one of the 
clouds.” 

“But,” objected Billy, “I don’t believe in fairies.” 

“Very well,” said Nimbus briskly, “keep right on don’t 
believing. It doesn’t disturb me in the least.” 

“And besides,” said Billy, “there couldn’t be such a 
thing as a Geography Fairy.” 

“How do you know?” demanded Nimbus. 

“Because,” said Billy, “I have never seen one.” 

“Nonsense!” returned Nimbus. “Did you ever see a 
noise?” 

“No,” Billy admitted, “I don’t think I ever did. At 
least I don’t remember ever having seen one.” 

“Well, do you believe that there aren't any noises?” 

Billy had no reply that seemed suitable, and so he said 
nothing. 

Apparently not caring whether he got an answer or not, 
Nimbus leaped lightly from the lilac blossom and, picking 
up an irregular sunbeam that filtered through the bush, 
he set it carefully on edge against the brim of Billy’s hat. 


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7 


“They get tired lying flat on their backs so much,” he 
said. “We’ll take this one with us when we go. When 
we’re hungry we’ll eat it.” 

“But we’re not going anywhere,” said Billy. “At 
least I am not. I’ve got to go into the house and put the 
toys away in a few minutes.” 

“Tut! tut!” said Nimbus. “Doesn’t the proverb say 
‘Never do anything to-day you can just as well put off 
until to-morrow’ ? Let’s enchant a trolley car and go look 
after the Equator. I ought to be there now. That’s my job, 
looking after the Equator. I’ve left the Equine Ox there, 
but he has such a habit of getting indigestion in one of 
his four stomachs, and sometimes in all of them, that he 
is very inattentive to business.” 

“Indigestion in four stomachs must be terribly distress- 
ing,” said Billy. “But what is an Equine Ox?” 

“You surely see one twice a year,” said Nimbus. “But 
they are always around. They have to be somewhere.” 

“I suppose they do,” said Bilty, “but what are they?” 

“Their names are Vernal and Autumnal. Here’s a 
poem I wrote about them once. My friends say I am con- 
ceited about my poetry, but I’m not. I don’t think it is 
as good as it really is.” 

“I never had an Equine Ox 

To glad me with its soft brown eye. 

But when I stroked its brindled locks 
It always rudely asked me why. 


8 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


“I never whispered fondly in 

The creature’s smooth and velvet ear, 

That it did not absurdly grin 

And shed a cadent, mirthful tear. 

‘T never clasped its crumpled horn. 

Nor gazed on it with loving look. 

That it did not give moos of scorn 
And sometimes even try to hook. 

“So, though I love the Equine Ox, 

I must admit that, on the whole, 

His conduct very often shocks 

My trusting and confiding soul.” 

“That,” said Nimbus, “will give you an excellent idea 
of the Equine Ox. Now let us enchant that trolley car 
and be off about our business.” 

“Pooh!” said Bilty, “y^^ can’t enchant a trolley car.” 

“There you go again,” said Nimbus, “never believing in 
things. Bring me a trolley car and I’ll show you whether 
or not I can enchant it.” 

“7 can’t bring you a trolley car,” said Billy. “You’ll 
have to hail one on the street if you want one. Anyway 
they don’t go to the Equator; they only go to town.” 

“We’ll see where they go,” returned Nimbus. “If I 
were going alone I’d go on a cloud, but I don’t suppose 
you could sit on a cloud, could you?” 

He regarded Billy doubtfully. 


BILLY MEETS NIMBUS 


9 


“I’m sure I couldn’t,” said Billy. “Besides, what’s the 
need of going at all?” 

“Oh, I really must go! A foolish Spring Tide broke 
one of the tropics the other day, and if the other gets 
broken there will be nothing to hold the Equator down 
but the meridians, and you know they’re very fragile.” 

Billy didn’t know that, but he nodded intelligently. It 
is always best to pretend to know more about geography 
than you really do. 

“We’ll be back in time for dinner,” continued Nimbus; 
“that is, if I don’t have to fasten up the tides again.” 

“Why,” said Billy, “you don’t mean to say you have to 
fasten the tides?” 

“Certainly!” replied Nimbus. “You know the tides are 
always trying to put out the Moon, and they go chasing 
around the Earth after her night and day. Of course the 
shore stops them after a while and drives them back, and 
that’s what makes them high and low. They’re high when 
they run up and try to wash over the shore, and low when 
the shore drives them back again. But to keep them from 
going too far we tie them down with meridians. That’s 
why they call them tides. Each one is tied, don’t you see?” 

“Gracious!” exclaimed Billy. “I hope they can’t get 
untied and put the Moon out.” 

“Oh, they won’t,” Nimbus assured him, “while I’m 
watching them! Sometimes they sneak up on her out of 
the ocean in little drops that we call mist, but the Sun 


10 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


always catches them at it, and sends them scurrying down 
in rain again.” 

“I almost believe I’ll go,” said Billy, “if you’re sure 
we can be back in time.” 

“Not a doubt of it,” said Nimbus; “I’ll send you back 
on a meteor if I have to stay.” 

Billy excused himself for a minute and ran into the 
house to tell his mother, but she was nowhere to he found. 
So he wrote a note in which he explained that he had gone 
away for a little while with the Geography Fairy. Re- 
turning to the garden, he found that Nimbus had now 
grown to be as large as a middle-sized baby. He was 
strolling across the lawn on his way to the front gate. 

Billy trudged along by his side, and soon they were at 
the street corner awaiting the coming of a big red trolley 
car, which Billy hailed at Nimbus’s suggestion. 

When the two got in the conductor looked at the queer 
little stranger in amazement. 

But Nimbus only nodded at him coldly, leaped up on 
the seat and began digging into his pocket, from which 
he presently pulled a huge blue transfer. 

This he held out when the conductor came for the fare. 

“That ain’t no good,” said the conductor. 

For reply Nimbus folded the transfer up into a tiny 
wand, touched the conductor on the cap with it and said: 

“This car for the Equator. Passengers desiring trans- 
fers for the Arctic Circle or the North Pole will kindly 
mention it before we get to Cuba.” 



Nimbus folded the transfer into a tiny wand and said: 
‘This car for the Equator!’ ” 



in ■» >. 


THE ENCHANTED TROLLEY CAR 


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CHAPTER II 


THE ENCHANTED TROLLEY CAR 

O F COURSE such an announcement as that made 
a great commotion in the trolley car. The other 
passengers, a thin deacon, two plumber’s appren- 
tices and a burglar, wanted to get off immediately. 

‘T was going back to the shop to get the tools,” said 
one of the plumber’s apprentices. 

‘T was on my way to a horse trade,” explained the 
deacon. 

“And I,” said the burglar, “was just looking about for 
a nice easy house to rob. They don’t have any houses at 
the Equator, so I would have absolutely nothing to do.” 

“Tut! tut!” said the conductor peevishly. “Keep your 
seats, gents. There ain’t no such a place as the Equator 
on this line. You’re on the wrong car, young chaps,” he 
added, turning to Billy and Nimbus. 

Billy was troubled at this. Could it be that Nimbus 
really couldn’t enchant the trolley car after all? 

But the Fairy only smiled as the car, which had started 
away suddenly, came to a stop, as if it had run into some- 
thing. 

“I thought we wouldn’t get past it,” he said. 

13 


14 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


“Get past what?” inquired Billy and the plumber’s ap- 
prentices in a breath. 

“That imaginary line,” said Nimbus. “I drew it across 
the track.” 

“But,” said Billy, “no imaginary line really goes any- 
where except the Equator.” 

“Neither will the trolley car until I let it,” replied 
Nimbus. “So they are in the same fix.” 

The motorman now came into the car. 

“Not enough juice,” he growled. “She turns all right, 
but she don’t get nowhere.” 

“Try her again,” advised the conductor anxiously. He 
was looking at Nimbus and Billy with suspicion. “You 
kids ain’t been soapin’ the track, have you?” he inquired 
suddenly. 

“Oh, no, sir!” said Billy. “I’m not allowed to do that.” 

The motorman again turned on the power, but although 
the wheels hummed and whirred on the track, not an inch 
forward did the car go. 

“There’s something wrong,” he said, “but I don’t know 
what it is. She turns all right, and she acts all right, but 
she don’t go ahead none.” 

“She won’t,” said Nimbus, “till these people get off. It 
would be a shame to take them to the Equator.” 

“Certainly it would,” said the deacon. “I for one am 
going to get off.” 

“Me, too,” said the burglar. 



Both the plumber’s apprentices jumi)ed hastily to the ground 





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THE ENCHANTED TROLLEY CAR 15 


And both of them did. 

‘Tt’s all right with us,” said the plumber’s apprentices, 
settling back in their seats. “Our time will go on just the 
same.” 

“Well, it ain’t with me,” said the motorman. “I’m going 
to see what’s stopping her.” 

He went to the rear door and was about to swing off the 
steps when he uttered a cry of alarm. 

“Great rabbits!” he shouted. “She’s risin’ off’m the 
track!” 

At this both the plumber’s apprentices ran to the plat- 
form and jumped hastity to the ground. 

The motorman and conductor hurried to the front 
platform, but when they reached it the car had risen 
thirty feet in the air and was sailing merrily through 
space. 

The conductor reeled back into the car and sank breath- 
less on a seat. The motorman followed him. 

“What kind of a way to do is this?” demanded the con- 
ductor of Nimbus. “And me with a wife and five 
children.” 

“There is no danger at all,” said Nimbus soothingly. 
“We’ll have to come down again, you know. Everything 
does, that goes up.” 

The conductor had got a little over his fright, and was 
looking out of the window. 

“I don’t know where we’re going. Tommy,” he said to the 


16 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


motorman, “but it does look as if we was on our way, 
don’t it?” 

“It’s an outrage!” said the motorman, “and I’ve a good 
mind to chuck this little feller overboard. It’s all his 
doings.” 

But Nimbus paid no attention to him at all. 

“You see,” he said to Billy, “that a trolley car can be 
enchanted if you go at it right. I could enchant the con- 
ductor and motorman if I wanted to. I think I’d turn the 
motorman into a bull.” 

The motorman grew pale at this. 

“Now, don’t do nothing like that,” he said. “I like this 
flying business, honest I do.” 

“Very well,” said Nimbus, “but I think you had better 
go out on the platform and look for stars. We may be 
running into one any time.” 

The motorman was glad to return to his post, and 
the conductor arose and walked unsteadily to the 
rear platform, where he held fast to the dashboard 
rail and gazed with open-mouthed wonder at the scene 
below. 

“We’ll soon be coming to the Dog Star,” Nimbus told 
Billy. “His name is Sirius, but he isn’t. He’s almost 
eight million years old, but he still behaves like a Puppy 
Star at the snow-making season. He worries the Snow 
Fairies half to death.” 

“What are Snow Fairies?” asked Billy. 


THE ENCHANTED TROLLEY CAR 17 


“They are the people that make the snow. Didn’t 
you ever hear the proverb, ‘Make snow while the moon 
shines’?” 

Billy wasn’t quite sure. He had heard one very much 
like that, though, about hay, and he wondered if they made 
snow in fields and left it out to dry in the moonshine. 

“Yes,” said Nimbus, although Billy had not spoken, “it 
is very much the same. The snowfiakes grow on the little 
stalks that shoot up from the clouds, and the Snow Fairies 
harvest them and dry them in the moonlight. Then they 
sift it down on the land and sea, whenever Jack Frost 
says the little boys and girls are tired of nutting and 
making autumn-leaf bonfires, and want to coast and throw 
snowballs.” 

“Do they make hail that way, too?” asked Billy. 

“Oh! gracious, no. They break the hail off the rain 
clouds with their hammers, and it freezes on the way down. 
They soon tire of that, though, so they never keep it up 
long. That is why you hear people say ‘Hail and Fare- 
well.’ You have to say good-by to a hailstorm almost 
before you’ve had time to say hello to it.” 

“I think it is very ill-mannered of the Dog Star to worry 
them,” said Billy. 

“Oh, Dog Stars have no manners. That is very well 
shown in the poem I wrote about the Dog Star. Did you 
ever happen to hear it?” 

“No,” said Billy. ‘T never did.” 


18 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


“Well,” said Nimbus, “as nearly as I can remember it 
runs something like this: 

“Dog Star, Dog Star, burning bright, 

You can neither read nor write. 

Yet you frolic just the same, 

And have not a thought of shame. 

“When I say : ‘Add one and one,’ 

You reply: ‘It can’t be done. 

Sums are flat and grammar stale, * 

I prefer to chase my tail.’ 

“When I ask : ‘Who built the ark ?’ 

You turn somersaults and bark: 

Or you growl, with drooping tail, 

‘Was it Jonah or the Whale?’ 

“Dog Star, Dog Star, you don’t know, 

Euclid, Vergil, Scipio, 

Algebra or Calculus, 

My! But you are frivolous.” 

“You see,” continued Nimbus, “the Hog Star cares 
absolutely nothing for manners. He even barks at 
O’Taurus.” 

“And who,” inquired Billy, “is O’Taurus?” 

“He’s the Irish Bull,” said Nimbus. “I’ll tell you more 
about him later. I’ve got to go to meet this IMeteor now.” 
Billy had noticed that for some time it had been getting 


THE ENCHANTED TROLLEY CAR 19 


brighter and brighter, although the Sun had hidden himself 
behind a great wall of blue-black clouds. Now he looked 
through the front windows and saw a great star sweep- 
ing rapidly down on them, swishing a long tail behind 
him. 

‘Ts — is it a comet?” he asked in affright, observing that 
the motorman rushed into the car, slamming the door after 
him. 

“Comet nothing!” said Nimbus. “It’s only a fourth- 
class Meteor with a message for me. They’re the A.D.T. 
boys up here, and he’s probably brought some word from 
the Equine Ox.” 

The Meteor came alongside and Billy read in gold letters 
across his glowing cap the words: 

PLANETARY MESSENGER SERVICE 

No. 7,622,451 

“My!” he exclaimed, “there are a lot of them, aren’t 
there?” 

“Seven million nine hundred thousand six hundred and 
three,” said Nimbus. “What have you got, boy?” 

“jNIessage, sir,” said the Meteor briskly, taking off his 
cap and extracting a blue envelope. 

Nimbus took it and ran his eye over it hastily. 

“Here’s a pretty kettle of fish,” he said, handing the 
paper to Billy. 


20 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


This is what Billy read as he held the paper in his 
trembling fingers : 

“Accidentally went to sleep and the Spring Tide broke the other 
tropic. Equator trying to get away, and think I can’t hold him 
long. Please come or send help as soon as possible. 

“Regretfully, Vernal E. Ox.” 

So! The Equator was trying to do the very thing 
Mother told Billy not to let him do! He was trying to 
slip off the earth by way of the South Pole! 


THE EQUATOR IS LOOSE 


« 


I 



CHAPTER III 


THE EQUATOR IS LOOSE 

OTHER that Equine Ox,” said Ximbus. ‘T might 
have known he’d do something like that, and just 
before procession week, too.” 

“Procession week?” said Billy wonderingly. 

“Yes, the week of the procession of the Equine Oxes. 
The Sun and the Moon and their oldest daughter, the 
Evening Star, were coming down to see it, and Jack Frost 
and Aurora Borealis ought to be there now. And that 
miserable Equine Ox has gone and spoiled it all. He isn’t 
fit for anything but a barbecue.” 

“What are you going to do?” asked Billy, while the con- 
ductor and the motorman gaped in a dazed silence. 

“Do? Why, fix it, of course. I only hope we can get 
there before he breaks away altogether. It would be a 
beautiful state of affairs to have an Equator charging up 
and down the world, wouldn’t it?” 

“I think it would be fun,” ventured Billy. 

“Oh, certainly!” said Nimbus. “When you played under 
the trees in your front yard, do you think it w^ould be fun 
to have cocoanuts drop on you instead of acorns? Instead 


24 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


of rabbits and chipmunks in the woods, do you think it 
would be fun to see lions and tigers and boa-constrictors 
and laughing hyenas, to say nothing of hippopotamuses 
with teeth like banisters? Yes, it would be real joll}^ now, 
wouldn’t it?” 

Billy saw that Nimbus was seriously disturbed and he 
kept silent. 

The iNleteor, who had entered the car unasked and taken 
a seat on the floor, now got up and began to shoot violently 
from one door to another, sometimes zigzagging so that he 
bumped the windows. His blazing tail trailed after him, 
and once or twice Billy had to draw back quickly to keep 
his face from a severe switching. 

The conductor and the motorman were very much an- 
noyed by these antics, and at last the conductor said : 

“What’s the matter with him, anyway? Why don’t he 
sit still?” 

“He can’t sit still,” said Nimbus. “A meteor is a shoot- 
ing star and ever so often he has to shoot.” 

“Shootin’ is against the rules,” growled the motorman. 
“No shootin’ allowed in any cars of this company.” 

“He isn’t shooting aloud. He’s shooting to himself,” 
said Nimbus. “I’ll send him back to the Equator as soon 
as I compose a message that is strong enough to tell the 
Equine Ox what I think of him.” 

Billy had been looking out of tbe window. A long way 
off he noticed a row of enormous signs, each with curious 


THE EQUATOR IS LOOSE 


25 


characters on it, all outlined in bright green and blue 
stars. 

“Signs of the Zodiac,” said the Meteor, coming to a sud- 
den stop and looking over Billy’s shoulder. “ Tveep off 
the sky,’ and ‘No loose dogs allowed,’ and such like. The 
Aerolites have just turned ’em on. They come right after 
the twilight.” 

“I — I don’t think I understand,” said Billy. 

“Neither do I,” said the JNIeteor, “but I’ll explain it in 
a minute. I’ve got a few shots in me now that have got 
to go off.” 

He leaped to his feet and began to dart backward and 
forward in the car till Nimbus, who was writing on a pad 
of paper, became irritated and slammed the car-door on 
the iNIeteor’s tail. 

“Isn’t he peevish!” said the JNIeteor, sinking down at 
Billy’s side. “But as I was saying about the Aerolites, 
every night the Sun goes down, as you know, and it would 
be pitch dark until the Moon and the Stars came up if it 
wasn’t for them. 

“One of them keeps watch until he sees the Sun starting 
to slide behind a mountain or into the sea, and then he 
tells the others, and they all hurry around and light the 
twilights. When they have them all lit there is enough 
light to see by till the JMoon and the Stars get out of bed 
for the night. After that they can light the Signs of the 
Zodiac. They get paid for that. Lighting the twilights 


26 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


they have to do for their board and lodging and motive 
power.” 

Nimbus left off WTiting. ‘T think that will do,” he said, 
lianding the pad to Billy. 

Billy read: 

E. Ox, Equator. 

“Of all the good-for-nothing, idle, dull-witted, stupid, feather- 
brained idiots I have met in twelve million years you are easily the 
worst. Send that Spring Tide to bed for a week. Get the other 
Equine Ox and a regiment of elephants and sit on the Equator 
till I get there. If he tries to get away duck him in the ocean. 
My only regret is that you have but four stomachs instead of 
ninet3^-four to get indigestion in. 

“Yours disgustedly. Nimbus.” 

The Meteor took the paper from Billy’s hand. Nimbus 
released the tail from the door and he shot forth into the 
night. 

Billy began to be very much distressed about the dark- 
ness, remembering his promise to his mother to be home 
for dinner. Nimbus, noticing his troubled face and feeling 
better now that he had unburdened himself of his opinion 
of the Equine Ox, sat beside him and said cheerfulh^: 

“Never mind, Bilh^ it’s always half dark up here. 
We’re out of the air, 3’^ou know, and we have to have air 
to see the light through, just as your mother has to have 
opera-glasses to see the pla}^ through. We’ll be home in 
time for dinner. Never fear.” 


THE EQUATOR IS LOOSE 


27 


At this assurance Billy felt much better, and became 
very eager to see the great fight that he knew would take 
place when they got down to the Equator and took part in 
the effort to keep him from escaping. 

But the motorman and the conductor were in no such 
cheerful mood. They sat apart in a corner and talked 
in whispers; and Billy, listening although he did not mean 
to, soon learned that they were talking about the Snow 
F airies. 

‘Tt’s them,” said the conductor, “that spills snow all 
over the tracks and ties up the lines in winter.” 

“Sure it is!” said the motorman. “Let’s get off and fix 
’em.” 

Billy glanced out of the window. There, right before 
his eyes, he saw a great number of little people, clad in 
white uniforms, raking huge masses of what seemed to be 
white flowers on the upper side of a cloud. Through the 
dim half-light he watched them working away, with rakes 
and pitchforks, some of them piling the white flakes into 
great stacks, while others pulled long rows of them to the 
edge of the cloud and pushed them over the side. 

Billy remembered that it was summer when he left home 
and he wondered how it happened that snow-making was 
going on ; but following with his eyes the flakes that whirled 
downward he saw a long chain of mountains far below. 
He knew, of course, that snow fell on mountains, even in 
summer time, so he understood. 


28 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


‘T tell you what I’ll do,” the motorman was saying; ‘T’ll 
go out and back her sideways and we’ll run through ’em. 
That’ll knock ’em all off the cloud, and we won’t have no 
more snow.” 

“Great idea,” said the conductor. “We’ll get ’em all at 
one lick.” 

Billy looked anxiously at Nimbus, who overheard, but 
only chuckled. “Let ’em try it,” he said, “and see what 
happens.” 

Nimbus joined Billy at the window, and the motorman 
and the conductor, seeing that the Fairy’s hack was turned, 
got up very quietly and went out on the front platform. 

The motorman put his lever on the controller and, look- 
ing around carefully to make sure that he was not observed, 
reversed the power. 

The car trembled, stopped, then began to go backward 
with a sidelong motion that took it right into the snow 
cloud. 

Instantly the air grew cold, and the wind howled around 
the trolley pole and rattled the windows. 

Straight into a great pile of snow went the car, and the 
Snow Fairies, looking uj^, saw it coming and skipped away 
in every direction. 

There was a shock, snow flew in showers, then the car 
buried itself in a great white i)ile up to the window toj^s 
and stopped stock still. 

Stamping and pawing the snow out of their eyes and 


THE EQUATOR IS LOOSE 


29 


mouths, the motorman and conductor came back into the 
car. 

“Pleasant weather, gentlemen,” said Nimbus. “Looks 
a little like snow, however. Suppose you go out now and 
clear the track. You’re used to it.” 

Angry, but too much ashamed of themselves to show 
their feelings, the motorman and the conductor got shovels 
from under the seats and went out to clear away a path 
for the car. 

“It always pays best to let Nature take care of herself, 
as the boy said who sat on the volcano,” Nimbus observed. 

“It will be a dreadful delay, though, and we are in such 
a hurry to get to the Equator,” said Billy. 

“Oh, no, there will be no delay at all! The Cloud is 
going right in our direction just as fast as we were. We’ll 
warm up, however, for it’s a trifle cold,” said Nimbus. And 
taking out the sunbeam he had brought with liim from 
the lilac hush, he bit a piece out of it and handed it to 
Billy. 

“Eat it,” he said. “Nothing so stimulating in cold 
weather as a sunbeam. We’ll just sit here and wait for 
an answer to my telegram. And you can get acquainted 
with the sky people.” 

Billy looked out of the window into the sky. Was it 
true, he wondered, that the Sun and JMoon were really 
sky people ? 

“What’s the matter?” asked Nimbus. 


30 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


“I was just wondering if the Stars are all really people,” 
said Billy. 

“Really people !” said Nimbus. “Well I sliould say they 
are. And all the Clouds are, too. You see that bunch over 
there? Well, that is ]Mrs. Pink-Cloud and JNIrs. White- 
Cloud and ]Mrs. Pearl-Cloud and ^Irs. ]Mackerel-Cloud 
and JNIrs. Yellow-Cloud sitting together and sewing on 
party dresses for their children to go to the Star children’s 
birthday party. It’s warm over there where they are.” 

“Oh!” said Billy. “Are they all named?” 

“Named! Of course they are! And every Star, too. 
But nobody can remember them but their own mother, 
JMrs. JMoon. Even their father, JMr. Sun, gets confused 
sometimes and mixes the boys’ names with the girls’.” 

“Are the Clouds people, too?” asked Billy wonderingly. 

“Just as much people as you are,” answered Nimbus 
seriously. “Old General Gray-Cloud and old General 
Thunder-Cloud are great fighters and have awful battles. 
You can hear them down on the Earth sometimes. It 
sounds like thunder and looks like lightning from where 
you live, but from where we live — Oh, m^M” 

“Dear me,” said Bill}^ “how very interesting! And do 
the mothers teach their children to behave the way our 
mothers do on the Earth, or are they allowed to do as they 
please in the sky?” 

“Well, you do show j^our ignorance!” said Nimbus, with 
such severit}^ that Billy quite blushed for himself. “Why 


THE EQUATOR IS LOOSE 


31 


let me tell you what I saw only yesterday when I was under 
the lilac bush waiting for you.” 

“Did you know about me before I saw you?” asked 
Billy, much flattered. 

“Why, certainly I did. I saw you having such a stupid 
time with a geography lesson which I knew I could make 
so easy for you that I said to myself: T’ll just 
wait until I have him all to myself and then I’ll show 
him!’” 

“That was very kind of you,” said Billy, “and I am 
sure that I shall never forget anything I have seen.” 

“That’s just the way with me,” said Ximbus; “so what 
I saw of the Cloud children I will tell to you, and then 
it will be just the same as if you had seen it.” 

“So it will,” said Billy, who by this time had got to have 
great faith in the Geograph}^ Fairy. 

“What do you suppose makes it rain?” asked Ximbus 
suddenly. 

Billy thought intently for a moment. He knew he had 
heard something about clouds and mist and heat and cold, 
but for the life of him he couldn’t remember when any- 
body asked him. That is what makes examinations so 
hard. You know, but you can’t remember. 

“Ah, ha!” said Nimbus. “You can’t think, can you? 
Well, I’ll tell you, and you’ll never forget this reason. The 
other day, when their mothers were all sitting and sewing, 
the Cloud children ” 


32 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


“What are their names?” asked Billy. 

“Well, there happened to be Pinkie Pink-Cloud and 
Goldie Gold-Cloud and Pearlie Pearl-Cloud. They asked 
their mothers if they could float over Central Park and 
watch the Earth children at play. Their mothers said yes, 
so away they went. At first it was great fun to watch, for 
it was Mayday and all the children were marching about in 
their pretty white dresses while nursemaids and frauleins 
and mademoiselles by the dozen, and a few mothers, were 
looking on. 

“Then Pinkie and Goldie and Pearlie began to play tag 
among themselves, nor was it very long before Pinkie said 
that Goldie did not tag her when she said she did, and 
Pearlie took sides; so in one moment those little sunny 
faces grew black with anger and presently they began to 
cry as hard as ever they could.” 

“Well?” said Billy, as Nimbus paused. 

“Well,” repeated the F airy, “don’t you see? Their tears 
were rain!” 

“Oh!” said Billy. 

“The next thing that happened was that their mothers 
looked up from their sewing and saw the dark spot over the 
park, where, a few minutes ago, it had all been bright and 
sunny. They knew what had happened, for in April and 
JNIay the Cloud children are easily upset and cry if you 
poke your finger at them. So they floated over to the park 
and, instead of asking the children what the matter was. 


THE EQUATOR IS LOOSE 


33 


as most mothers would have done, Mrs. Gold-Cloud told 
the children to look down at the park.” 

“And what did they see?” asked Billy, who never before 
had thought of looking at the Earth children through the 
eyes of the clouds. 

“Why, the rain spoiling all the pretty white dresses and 
the children all stopping their play and rushing about for 
shelter.” 

“I know,” said Billy. “I was there myself.” 

“Were youV’ said Nimbus. “Then you know what 
happened.” 

“I only know it stopped raining,” said Billy. 

“But don’t you know why?” asked Nimbus. 

Billy shook his head. 

“Because Mrs. Gold-Cloud told the children how tears 
and black looks on their faces always spoiled the pleasure of 
somebody else, and how smiles and sweet looks and lots of 
love in the heart brings happiness. When she said this, the 
Cloud children dried their tears on their mothers’ cloud 
handkerchiefs and began to smile, and when Pinkie and 
Goldie kissed each other, the whole sky brightened up. So 
everything got sunshiny again, and of course the rain 
stopped as soon as the tears were dried, so in five minutes 
the little Earth children were running about again as 
happy as lambs. And the sight of their happiness made 
the Cloud children glad they had not been so selfish as to 
quarrel long.” 


34 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


“They must be nice children,” said Billy thoughtfully. 
“That story sounds the way my mother tells things.” 

“When you go back, you can tell the story to her,” said 
Nimbus. 

“Thank you for telling me,” said Billy politely. “It is a 
very nice story and I sha’n’t forget it. I’ll have lots of 
things to tell when I get back. What are you going to do 
about the Equator?” 

“Hello!” The last exclamation was directed at the 
JNIeteor, who suddenly appeared through the snow bank 
and, panting for breath, handed Nimbus a message which 
Billy read over his shoulder. 

The message read; 

“Glad to know 3^00 are coming, and thanks for 3"Our kind words. 
Equator is loose. 


‘Respectfullj^, Equine Ox." 


THE EQUINE OX AND EA^ENING STAR 




CHAPTER IV 


THE EQUINE OX AND THE EVENING STAR 

I EXPECTED it,” said Nimbus with a sigh. ‘T 
might have known the Equine Ox couldn’t hold him.” 
‘T don’t suppose it is any use to go to the Equator 
now, is it?” asked Billy. ‘T don’t see how we can go there 
if we don’t know where it is.” 

“Well, we know where it was, and there’s where we’ll 
go,” snapped Nimbus. “I have a little speech to make to 
the Equine Ox that he ought to hear.” 

The motorman and the conductor had now got a nice, 
clean path shoveled through the snow, so thej^ boarded the 
car and it soon slid off the snow cloud and sped on again. 

Presently Billy, looking downward, saw that they were 
coming closer to the Earth all the time. And what a dif- 
ferent Earth it was from any he had ever seen outside of a 
geography ! A curving coast-line laced with filmy surf lay 
below him, and on the hills that rose from it he could see 
countless palm trees, each with a little tuft at the top like 
the long blades of blue grass about the edge of the garden 
at home, well beyond the reach of the lawn mower. 

“Gracious! We must be near where the Equator was,”^ 

37 


38 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


he exclaimed. “It looks like a conservatory outdoors down 
there.” 

“It’s not,” said Nimbus. “It’s the grandstand. That’s 
where the procession of the Equine Oxen was to be held.” 

“Of course it won’t be held now?” timidly suggested 
Billy. 

“It will, if I have anything to do with it. Just because 
we never did have a procession without an Equator is no 
reason we shouldn’t have one. Besides, now that there’s 
no Equator to watch, unless they parade, those good-for- 
nothing creatures won’t earn their cuds.” 

The car by this time was grating on a hillside, and soon 
brought U13 between a couple of slender palm trees. 

“I’ve been expecting you,” said a voice — a sad voice that 
seemed to come from directly above the car. 

Looking out of the car window, Billy saw a bright light 
among the branches of the tree — a light that surrounded 
like a halo the figure of a very pretty girl. 

“Why,” said Nimbus briskly, lifting his hat, “it’s the 
Evening Star.” 

“Yes,” said the Evening Star, “it is I. I came to com- 
plain about the Equine Ox. He’s very disconsolate, and 
he’s singing continually. I wish you’d stop him.” 

Billy was very much surprised to find the Evening Star 
all alone. He was about to ask Nimbus why it was when 
she said: 

“You see. Papa — ^he’s the Sun — never comes out at 


THE EQUINE OX AND EVENING STAR 39 


night ; and Mrs. Moon, who’s my mamma, isn’t up yet, so 
I had to come alone. Is there anything else you’d like to 
know, little boy?” 

Billy was very much abashed at thus having a question 
answered before he had asked it, and especially by a young 
lady whom he had never met. But there was one thing he 
wanted to know very much, so he said politely : 

“Yes, thank you. I should like to know why the Equine 
Ox sings when he is unhappy.” 

“Oh, that’s so people can tell he’s the Equine Ox,” said 
the Evening Star. “He always does things backward. 
When he’s very angry he rolls on the ground and roars 
with laughter. When he’s pleased about anything he 
weeps bitterly, and when he’s unhappy he sings.” 

“There he is now,” said Nimbus, who had been listening 
intently. “Don’t you hear him?” 

Billy heard something that first sounded like a long- 
drawn-out moo, but which he soon recognized as a very 
familiar air. 

“Come on,” said Nimbus. 

“Us, too?” inquired the motorman and conductor. “We 
don’t want to be left alone in these here foreign parts.” 

“Yes,” said Nimbus, “come ahead!” and he led the way 
down a winding pathway that opened through the 
trees. 

The singing grew louder and louder as they proceeded, 
and shortly they came out into a little open space over- 


40 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


grown with flowers and surrounded by a very dense trop- 
ical growth. In the center of it stood a creature that looked 
a little like an ox, a little like a horse, and ^^ery much like 
a map of the solar system. Billy and the street-car men 
stopped at a signal from Nimbus. The Equine Ox was 
singing. 

How dear to my heart was my home in the tropics. 

The pythons that wreathed in fantastic festoons; 

The parrots discoursing on trivial topics, 

The smug armadillos and sweet-faced baboons; 

The ostrich, the emu, the suave alligator, 

Flamingoes with necks that were cleverly curled ; 

But dearest of all was the charming Equator, 

The dear old Equator that ran round the world ! 

CHORUS 

The queer old Equator, 

The dear old Equator, 

The quaint old Equator 
That ran round the world. 

From sunset to moonset I look for it vainly, 

I seek it at noontide, I hunt it at dawn ; 

And when I don’t find it I see very plainly, 

Too plainly, alas, that it’s probably gone! 

I bade it good-night with the fondest affection. 

And lay down beside it to take a brief nap. 

But leaving no clew that could lead to detection 
The queer old Equator slid right off the map. 



( 6 


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THE EQUINE OX AND EVENING STAR 41 


CHORUS 

The queer old Equator, 

The dear old Equator, 

The quaint old Equator 
Slid right off the map. 

Directly the song was finished Nimbus strode up to 
the Equine Ox and, shaking his fist angrily at him, de- 
manded : 

“Now, sir, where is that Equator?” 

“That’s the question,” said the Equine Ox; “where is he? 
Who knows the answer?” Then seeing Billy, he added: 
“Maybe you do!” 

“Why, no, sir,” replied Billy in confusion. “I don’t. 
Not at all.” 

“Pay no attention to him,” said Nimbus. “He’s merely 
trying to avert suspicion from himself.” Then turning to 
the Equine Ox, he proceeded: “Tell us how he got away. 
Be quick, there is no time to lose.” 

“Oh, yes, there is,” said the Equine Ox; “any quantity 
of it! I lose a great deal every day and hope to lose a 
great deal more. As for finding time, now that is 
another ” 

“How did the Equator get away?” said Nimbus sternly. 
“Well, you see, it was this way. Night fell on the tropics 
and the tropics broke.” 

“Ho, ho!” exclaimed the conductor. “That’s a joke. 
Ho, ho!” 


42 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


“What is the gentleman angry about?” uneasily asked 
the Equine Ox, who always laughed when he was angry. 

“Nothing,” said Nimbus; “go ahead with your ex- 
planation.” 

“Then a few waves broke,” continued the Equine Ox, 
“and then day broke and, well — what could the Equator 
do but break, too?” 

“Did you sit on it?” asked Billy eagerly. 

The Equine Ox regarded him gravely. 

“Did you ever sit on an Equator?” he asked. 

“Why, no,” said Billy, embarrassed. “I didn’t.” 

“Neither did I,” said the Equine Ox. “Far be it from 
me to sit on an Equator when it is going anywhere.” 

“So it’s completely gone, has it?” asked Nimbus. 
“Which way did it go?” 

“Shall I answer both of those questions first?” said the 
Equine Ox. 

“I’ll answer the last,” volunteered the Evening Star. 
“It went south and slipped off the South Pole. I 
saw it.” 

Nimbus fell back with a groan and Bilh" ran foiivard to 
catch him. 

The motorman and conductor gathered around. “Jab 
him in the ribs with the crank handle,” suggested the con- 
ductor. “It’s the way we do wiien they faints on the car.” 

But Nimbus revived before this became necessary. 

“It gave me such a start,” he said. 


THE EQUINE OX AND EVENING STAR 48 


“The Equator’s got a better one,” said the Equine Ox. 

“Everything’s easy once you get a start,” commented 
the motorman. 

Nimbus was now himself, and a very ener getic little self 
he was. First he placed the conductor and the motorman 
in charge of the Equine Ox, with orders not to let him 
out of their sight. 

“He must be here to-morrow,” he said, “or the pro- 
cession cannot go on, and if the procession does not go on 
it will always be summer and the sea will dry up.” 

The motorman and the conductor were scarcely eager 
to undertake the charge, but something in Nimbus’s man- 
ner convinced them that it was necessary, so they con- 
sented. 

“You,” said Nimbus to the Evening Star, “will please 
go and tell your father that the Equator is off the Earth 
and that I will try to catch him. 

“And you,” he said to Billy, “come with me. As soon 
as the Equator is off the Earth, he will shrink up to the 
size of a barrel hoop, and the meanness in his disposition 
condensed into that small space will make a perfect fiend 
of him. He is liable to drop right down on us this very 
minute and burn us into a cinder before you can say ‘Jack 
Robinson.’ He gets so hot when he’s angry that he has 
been known to set an iceberg on fire. By the way,” he 
added, “how quickly can you say ‘Jack Robinson’?” 

“Jackrobinson!” said Billy. 


44 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


‘T thought so!” said Nimbus. “You’d have been dry 
ashes before you got to a-c-k.” 

Hardly had he left off speaking when a JNIeteor dashed 
in with a message from the Dog Star. 

“Equator coming back to Earth vowing vengeance 
against Nimbus and Evening Star,” it said. 


m PURSUIT 







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CHAPTER V 


IN PURSUIT 

‘‘ I ^IRST of all/’ said Nimbus, “we must find the Rays. 

1^ Then we’ll go down to the Meteor farm and put 
all the JNIeteors who are off watch or on part time, 
to work doing scout duty.” 

“Who are the Rays?” asked Billy. 

“They are the Sun’s private messengers. They do all his 
regular work for him, such as making things grow, and 
arranging the weather, and building the bridges ” 

“Bridges?” Billy inquired. 

“Yes, rainbow bridges. How could we fairies get over 
the ocean if it wasn’t for them?” 

“You might go on enchanted trolley cars,” suggested 
Billy. 

“Yes, we might, if trolley cars grew on trees in jungles 
like monkeys, but they don’t.” 

Billy thought it best to make no more suggestions. 

“The Rays,” continued Nimbus, “are named Violet, In- 
digo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red. Get them 
all together and they make a beautiful, clear, white light,, 
and we’ll need such a light to find the Equator.” 

47 


48 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


There was a rustling of the trees behind them and a sad 
voice called out: ‘T wish you’d take me with you. I’m 
afraid to stay alone.” 

Billy looked quickly around and saw the Evening Star 
standing at a little distance, looking very pretty indeed 
in the soft light that seemed to sift out of her white 
frock. 

“Oh, nonsense !” said Nimbus. “We’ve men’s work here. 
You don’t want to go anyway!” 

Two bright tears stood in the Evening Star’s eyes and 
glistened in the glow that surrounded her. Nimbus 
clapped his hands in delight. 

“There you are, you fellows!” he shouted; “come out of 
that.” 

“Who?” cried Billy. 

“The Rays — all of them. Don’t you see them hiding in 
those teardrops? Come, come. No more delay! I’ve im- 
portant work for jmu.” 

As he spoke, there suddenly appeared before him seven 
lively little chaps, each clad from head to foot in his own 
prismatic color, and all dancing excitedly about the 
ground. 

“Go tell the old man that the Equator has got away,” 
commanded Nimbus. “And then come back here and 
make us a searchlight. If he isn’t back here where he 
belongs by to-morrow there’s no telling what will happen.” 

Without a word the Rays suddenly united in a bril- 


IN PURSUIT 


49 


liant shaft of white light and whisked away over the tree- 
tops. 

As they vanished Billy thought he heard a sob, and 
glancing about, saw the Evening Star sitting in the 
branches of a low palm and crying as if her heart would 
break. 

“Oh, I’m afraid! I’m afraid!” she wailed. “If the 
Equator should come back and find me here when you’re 
gone he’ll turn me into a Comet; I just know he will!” 

Nimbus’s face grew serious at this. 

“There is danger of that,” he said. “Yes, he would 
be just about contemptible enough to do that very 
thing.” 

“But how could he?” inquired Billy, his bewilderment 
steadily increasing. 

“Easiest thing in the world. He has only to set fire to 
her hair, and it would stream out behind her in a fan of 
flame. Then she’d be so frightened that she’d go wander- 
ing off through space and become a Comet.” 

“Then,” said Billy, “I think we had better take Miss 
Evening Star with us, don’t you? Unless her father, Mr. 
Sun, can look after her.” 

Nimbus frowned at Billy impatiently. 

“My dear boy,” he said, “don’t you know that the Sun 
never does any night work of any kind? Besides, just 
now he’s busy on the other side of the world. Yes, we’ll 
take her with us.” 


50 


THE RUXAWAY EQUATOR 


So Ximbus and the Evening Star and Billy went off 
to the yard where the JMeteors off duty and on part time 
were assembled. 

The inclosiire, which was walled in by four fogs, was 
full of them, jumping hurdles, plajdng marbles, or racing 
around after each other. 

So busy were they at their sport that it was not until 
Ximbus had shouted himself hoarse that they paid the 
slightest attention to him. 

At last, however, one of them heard him and shot over 
fo see what he wanted. 

“I don’t believe,” said Ximbus, “that you ]Meteors could 
hear the rings of Saturn if they rang all at once. Did you 
know that the Equator had escaped?” 

“Goodness, no!” said the JNIeteor, and instantly shot 
about among his fellows spreading the dreadful news. 

They left off playing immediately, and all lined up be- 
fore Ximbus for orders. 

“You must go find the Equator,” said the Fairy au- 
thoritatively. “The Rays have gone to notify the Sun. 
Ten of you will come with us. The other six million will 
scatter about the universe and look for him. Let me know 
the instant you see him, and stop him if he starts to come 
back to the Earth.” 

“Yes, sir,” said the jNIeteors in a breath. With a great 
crackling noise they shot away into the void, each taking 
a different direction so that their going looked like a splen- 





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IN PURSUIT 


51 


did shower of rockets on the night of the Fourth of 
July. 

‘T suppose,” said Nimbus, “that the next thing to do 
is to build a tower so we can see what is going on in the 
sky.” 

“We have nothing to build it of,” said Billy. 

“We could make it of JMoonbeams if there were any 
Moon,” replied Nimbus. 

“But there isn’t,” said the Evening Star, “so we’d better 
find a hill to climb.” 

“I saw a beautiful hill as we were coming here,” said 
Billy. “It had a white top, and stood out ever so high over 
the others.” 

“That was a volcano,” said Nimbus. “It’ll be just the 
place for us.” 

“Let’s be starting, then,” said Billy. 

So the whole party set out through the trees for the 
volcano, and in an hour or two were standing on a great 
lava field looking up at the dark sky, which seemed fairly 
alive with fiery-tailed meteors hurrying here, there and 
everywhere on their search for the Equator. 

Billy had just settled himself with his back against a 
comfortable boulder when he noticed right over his 
head an object which resembled a great, luminous dough- 
nut. “I wonder what that is,” he said, pointing upward. 

The Evening Star, quite exhausted with the tramp up 
the mountain, had been sitting with her bright face in her 


52 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


hands. At Billy’s words she glanced up, and a terrified 
scream brought Nimbus to his feet. 

“There he is !” shouted Nimbus excitedly. “He’s coming 
this way, and we can never capture him.” 

“There who is?” asked Billy. 

“The Equator!” said Nimbus. 


ON THE PASSIVE VOLCANO 



JV iLii 



CHAPTER VI 


ON THE PASSIVE VOLCANO 

O F COURSE there was but one thing to do, and that 
was to escape as quickly as possible. Even Nimbus, 
powerful as he was, couldn’t control a runaway 
Equator single-handed, and if the Evening Star were ever 
turned into a comet it would take years of patient effort 
on the part of her parents to turn her back into a Star 
again. 

Nimbus looked swiftly about him for a second, and then 
he said: “Fortunately, this is not an active volcano, so we’ll 
slip into the crater.” 

He led the way toward a cavelike opening right in the 
summit of the mountain — an opening which led downward 
diagonally, so that it afforded ample shelter. 

Billy hesitated. He had heard about volcanoes, and the 
thought of bearding it in its crater was very terrifying. 

“Don’t be afraid,” said Nimbus; “this is a passive 
volcano.” 

That reassured Billy, and when he was safe inside the 
crater he asked what a passive volcano was. 

“It’s one that isn’t active. There are two kinds of verbs 


55 


56 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


and two kinds of volcanoes — active and passive. The 
fire in this one has been banked, so it’s perfectly 
safe.” 

Billy was still a little uneasy, and he was by no means 
cheered by a sound of dull rumbling that came up out of 
the depths of the crater. 

He had little time to worry about this new danger, how- 
ever, for just then the crater became filled with terrific 
heat, and its dark recesses were illumined by a brilliant 
glare. 

Billy’s eyes were dazzled at first, then right above him 
he made out the circular form of the Equator staring 
blankly down at him. 

“Oh, I am lost!” cried the Evening Star, and with a 
series of leaps she disappeared down the crater. 

“The goose, she’ll be burned to death!” said Nimbus, and 
started after her. 

There was a sound of falling gravel, a sharp patter of 
footsteps, and then silence. 

Billy knew that it would be foolish to follow, so he 
quietly waited for something to happen. 

The Equator, meanwhile, was getting a little more ac- 
customed to the darkness. As he peered about he muttered 
to himself, and Billy caught the words: “I hope she hasn’t 
got away. There’s no one left hut the Equine Ox, and 
you couldn’t turn him into a Comet any more than you 
could turn him out of a pasture.” 


ON THE PASSIVE VOLCANO 


57 


“You ought not to turn anybody into a Comet,” said 
Billy. “It isn’t polite.” 

The Equator started violently. 

“Who are you?” he demanded, scowling at Billy. 

“My name is Billy,” said the little boy, “and I am a 
friend of the Evening Star.” 

“Do you think you could be turned into a Comet, Billy?” 
asked the Equator solicitously. 

“I — I hope not,” faltered Billy. “I never tried, 
though.” 

“I’m afraid you couldn’t,” grumbled the Equator. 
“Perhaps you can tell me where I can find the Evening 
Star.” 

“No,” said Billy decidedly. “I will not.” 

“Oh, come now, don’t be rude. I won’t turn her into a 
very big Comet, you know.” 

“I don’t care,” said Billy. “I shall not tell you where she 
is, and I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself.” 

“I was driven to it,” said the Equator; “when the Geog- 
raphers made me, they wanted to be sure to have enough 
of me to go around, and I’ve been going around ever since. 
It got so monotonous after a while that I simply had to 
get into mischief or explode.” 

“Was that why you escaped?” asked Billy. 

“Yes; the Equine Ox went to sleep and I broke a 
meridian and got away. It was quite oxidental, my escap- 
ing; I mean accidental.” 


58 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


‘Tt cannot be very nice, being an Equator,” said Billy 
thoughtfully; “but it would be far worse to be a Comet.” 

“Oh, I don’t know!” said the Equator. “Comets only 
have to get to a certain place once in two or three hundred 
years, while an Equator has to be in one place always. I’m 
very tired,” he said suddenly. “What do you usually do 
when you’re tired?” 

“I sleep,” said Billy. 

“Indeed!” said the Equator; “how interesting. How 
is it done?” 

“Why,” exclaimed Billy eagerly, “y^^ down some- 
where, then you close your eyes, then you think of sheep 
jumping through a fence and try to count them until you 
fall asleep.” 

“But I can’t think of any sheep jumping through a 
fence. I never saw a sheep, nor a fence. Do you suppose 
it would do just as well to count hippopotamuses jumping 
through a swamp?” 

“Perhaps,” said Billy doubtfully, “although I never 
tried it.” 

To his great joy the Equator settled down on the sum- 
mit of the volcano and closed his eyes. He breathed hard 
and regularly for a little, and then, as one eye opened, he 
said: “What do you do when the third and seventh and 
eleventh hippopotamus is a rhinoceros? Count him, too?” 

“Certainly,” said Billy, and again the Equator closed 
his eyes. 


ON THE PASSIVE VOLCANO 


59 


Presently he opened them again. “Look here,” he ex- 
claimed, “IVe counted all the hippopotamuses and rhinoc- 
eroses there are. Now what do I do?” 

“Begin on the camels and lions and tigers,” said Billy. 

“And when they’re counted?” 

“Count the ants,” said Billy with a sudden inspiration, 
and the Equator troubled him no more. 

Billy was delighted. The Equator’s lips moved rapidly 
for some minutes, and Billy slipped quietly down into the 
crater to find Nimbus and the Evening Star to tell them 
to hurry and make their escape. 

He wandered about blindly for some little time, then 
stopped bewildered. 

The crater forked in many directions. It seemed hope- 
less to explore any one of them because his friends might 
have taken another. 

At last he determined to make sure that when they did 
come back they would have no trouble in escaping. 

Returning to the mouth of the crater he saw the Equator 
still fast asleep. 

Billy’s hands went to his pockets, and when they came 
out they brought a quantity of fish-line, which he always 
carried for emergencies. 

He deftly tied the line to a huge stone, making sure 
that the knot was fast, and then very cautiously slipped 
it through the center of the Equator, making a loose knot, 
but one that would be reasonably sure to hold him. He 


60 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


doubled and redoubled the string, and when the job was 
done stood back and surveyed it with considerable pride. 

Then, assured that the Equator was at his mercy, he 
began to hope for him to wake up so that he could enjoy 
his triumph. He even coughed once or twice in the hope 
of awakening his captive, but the Equator was very tired 
and it seemed impossible to arouse him. 

At last, unable longer to restrain his impulse, Billy took 
a sharp stick and poked the Equator smartly once, twice, 
three times. 

The sleeper’s eyes opened, and he tried to yawn and 
stretch, but the fish-line restrained him. He looked about 
wratbf Lilly and espied Billy. 

Instantly his dull glowing skin became white hot with 
rage, and the line melted away like straw. 

The Equator sprang to his feet, his whole circular body 
shining like the iron which the blacksmith has just taken 
from the forge. 

“You shall pay for this, young man!” he cried. “I may 
not be able to turn you into a Comet, but I can maroon you 
on the Polar Star, which will be quite as satisfactory.” 

As Billy stood petrified with fear the Equator swept 
down upon him. 



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CHAPTER VII 


JACK FROST 

I F YOU’VE never had an Equator sweep down on 
you, of course you cannot understand in the least how 
frightened Billy was. Even the Equine Ox grew gray 
with fear when the Equator was angry, and the Equine 
Ox was seldom disturbed by anything but indigestion in his 
four stomachs. 

As for Billy, he had never been really frightened before, 
excepting the time he fell into a tar barrel, and looking 
back upon it, that experience now seemed a very tame 
affair. 

He shrank back and waited for the worst. To his sur- 
prise it did not happen. For just as the Equator was rush- 
ing toward him, just as he was trying to say Jack Robin- 
son, and say it so quickly that his life would be spared an 
instant or two before he was turned to ashes, he heard a 
voice say: 

“Hello, ’Quate! Loose, I see!” 

Instantly the Equator, who had been white-hot, turned 
a sort of sickly yellow, then faded to dull red, and finally 
to a bluish green. In the meantime he had stopped sweep- 

63 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


G4 


ing down on Billy and was motionless, save for a tremor 
that ran through his circular frame. 

Between Billy and the Equator stood a wiry little fellow 
dressed all in fluffy white, with a white cap to match. In 
his hand he held what seemed to be a very straight icicle, 
which glittered with all the hues of the rainbow. 

The Equator glowered upon the newcomer for some 
seconds before he growled huskily: “Jack Frost!” 

“Perfectly correct,” said the stranger cheerfully. “I 
always did admire a good memory for names.” 

“What are you doing here?” demanded the Equator 
sulkily, and Billy saw to his joy that he was now in no fur- 
ther danger of attack. 

“Nothing that I am ashamed of,” returned Jack Frost, 
“which is more, it seems to me, than you can say.” 

The Equator stared at Billy. “I — I — ” he faltered. 

“What was he doing?” asked Jack Frost, turning sud- 
denly to Billy. Before the little boy could answer the 
Equator with a flop or two rose in the air, circled once or 
twice over the trees and sailed rapidly away. 

“Bad lot!” commented Jack Frost. “Never take him 
seriously.” 

“But he was going to burn me up,” said Billy. 

“Umph!” said Jack Frost. “That’s different. Let’s go 
and see about it.” 

Billy thought he had seen all of the Equator he cared 
to, but Jack Frost insisted on watching that ill-tempered 


JACK FROST 


65 


creature, and so Billy followed him to the very top of the 
volcano where they could get a clear view of the horizon. 

They saw the Equator making off a mile or two away, 
and Jack Frost, taking Billy by the arm, started down the 
mountain at a brisk trot. As they hurried along Jack 
Frost said: 

“I suppose you have heard of me.” 

“Oh, yes,” said Billy. “I have, many times.” 

“I’m not so cold as I’m painted,” said Jack Frost. 

“I’m sure you are not,” replied Billy respectfully. 

“Xo,” said Jack Frost, “I really am not a had fellow. 
Your father probably holds it against me because I freeze 
the w^ater pipes sometimes, but think how the plumber’s 
poor little children love me for it.” 

“That’s true,” said Billy. 

“Sometimes,” continued Jack Frost, “I pinch little boys’ 
fingers, but that is only to remind them that they forget to 
ask their mothers if they can go skating.” 

“I only did that once,” said Billy, reddening. 

“Again,” said Jack Frost, “I nip flowers. I do that 
to warn them to go back into the ground, because winter 
is coming.” 

“You ought to do it,” said Billy. ‘T hope they don’t 
object.” 

“They do, though. People often object to things that 
are good for them, like going to bed early, and washing 
their hands and geography.” 


66 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


“Oh, I love geography now,” protested Billy. 

“Oh, I’m delighted to hear it. Do you like songs?” 

“Yes, indeed. The Equine Ox knows a beautiful one 
about the Equator.” 

“I cannot imagine a beautiful song about the Equator,” 
said Jack Frost. “See what you think of mine.” And seat- 
ing himself on the edge of the cliff they had been skirting, 
with his heels hanging over space, he sang: 

THE SONG OF JACK FROST 
“In the brown October, 

When the bonfires burn, 

When reluctant robins 
Sadly homeward turn. 

When the trees are moulting 
Leaves of gold and red. 

Like stray flakes of sunset 
From the sky o’erhead. 

Then I steal at twilight 

Through the shadows gray, 

Heralding the winter 
That is on its way. 

Soon with films of silver 
I shall overspread 
Every quiet water 
In its pebbly bed. 

Soon I’ll w'arn the flowers 
That it’s time to keep 
Tryst with dreams of springtime, 

Wrapped in golden sleep. 



‘‘And seating himself on the edge of tlie cliff, he sang” 








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JACK FROST 


67 


Then when first the snowflakes 
Tremble in the air 
I must forth and hurry, 
Hurry everywhere: 
Silvering the treetops 

Till their branches bright 
Shimmer as the rainbow 
In the morning light. 
Etching lacy landscapes 
On the windowpane, 
Spreading fluffy carpets 
Over hill and plain, 

Roofing over rivers. 
Blanketing the bears. 
Warm and snug and cozy 
In their forest lairs. 

Here and there and yonder. 
Always on the wing. 

Till I’m called to slumber 
By the voice of Spring.” 


‘T think that is a very pretty song,” said Billy. 

“Thank you,” said Jack Frost; “but what has become of 
the Equator in the meantime?” 

Billy looked in every direction, but no sign of the Equa- 
tor was to be seen. 

“I was listening to your song,” he said. “I forgot to 
keep looking.” 

“You are a very nice little hoy,” said Jack Frost, pat- 


68 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


ting Billy on the head, “but we have just got to find that 
Equator. There is no telling what he may be doing.” 

“I know what he will try to do,” said Billy. 

“That’s something. AVhat is it?” 

“Catch IMiss Evening Star and make a Comet out of 
her.” 

“Great goodness! Why didn’t you say that before?” 

“There wasn’t time,” explained Billy. 

“There is always time,” said Jack Frost coldly. “Time 
is everywhere. The supply is inexhaustible.” 

“I’m sorry,” said Billy. 

“Never mind,” said Jack Frost kindly. “I dare say it 
will turn out all right, like the farmer’s wagon that met the 
automobile. Anyway, here comes the Geography Fairy. 
He ought to have some tidings.” 

Looking over the edge of the cliff, Billy saw Nimbus ap- 
proaching. He explained afterward that the crater which 
he and the Evening Star had followed, led right through 
the volcano and out of the cliff at the bottom. 

Jack Frost hailed him, and Nimbus climbed up, bidding 
his train of Meteors wait until he returned. 

He and Jack Frost shook hands cordially, and Nimbus 
inquired : 

“Have either of you seen anything of the Evening Star? 
I lost track of her when we got out of the crater.” 

“Gracious!” said Billy, “I thought she was with 
you.” 


JACK FROST 


69 


“So she was,” said Nimbus, “but she said she thought 
she’d like to fly once more, and sailed off to pay the Moon 
a visit.” 

Jack Frost looked up quickly. 

“That’s where the Equator’s gone, then,” he said. 

“Has the Equator left the top of the volcano?” asked 
Nimbus excitedly. 

“He has,” said Jack Frost. “He was just about to 
destroy this little boy when I stopped him. He’s afraid 
of me.” 

“JMore than of any one else in the whole world,” said 
Nimbus. “But where do you suppose he is now?” 

“I don’t suppose,” said Jack Frost; “I can only sus- 
pect.” 

“And what do you suspect?” 

“That he’s trailing the Evening Star, and if he finds, 
her ” 

“But he must not find her,” cried Nimbus. 

“No,” said Jack Frost, “he must not.” 

Out of the darkness above them shone a bright speck 
that grew larger and larger. As it drew nearer Billy saw 
that it was a Meteor, a new Meteor which he had never seen 
before. 

“Hey, there!” shouted Nimbus, who had seen him the 
same moment Billy did; ‘'any message for me?” 

“Yes,” puffed the Meteor, who was not within easy talk- 
ing distance. “Miss Evening Star is being chased by the 


70 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


Equator, and has only got about a thousand miles’ 
start.” 

“Which way are they going?” asked Nimbus and Jack 
F rost in a breath. 

“Gee whiz!” said the Meteor, “I forgot to ask.” 


THE COMPASS 



CHAPTER VIII 


THE COMPASS 

TRANGE that you fellows never forget to ask for 
your meals,” said Jack Frost tartly. “Your memory 
never fails you there.” 

“Let us not waste time scolding them,” said Yimbus. 
“The important thing is to find where the Equator and 
the Evening Star have gone.” 

“Very true,” said Jack Frost. “We’ll establish head- 
quarters immediately, and send out scouts.” 

Then he led the way to a little clump of palms which 
was at the foot of a hill just below them. 

The Meteors, like a great flock of fireflies, followed 
along in their wake, and when they stopped they lined up 
for orders. 

“Now,” said Nimbus, addressing them, “how many 
points of the compass are there?” 

“It depends entirely on the compass,” said one of the 
JNIeteors. 

“He’s right,” said Jack Frost. “A large compass would 
have more points than a small one. There’s more room 
on it.” 


73 


74 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


“I can box the compass,” chirruped another JNIeteor 
proudly. 

“I can box ears,” snapped Nimbus peevishly. 

Here Jack Frost broke in. 

“Tell off a thousand JMeteors,” he said, “to count all the 
points on the largest compass, and then order a scout to 
go in the direction pointed by each point. That ought to 
get them.” 

“Good,” declared Nimbus. “Go to work, you fellows, 
and carry out orders. The first one who discovers them, 
notify Aurora Borealis, and she’ll flash the signal down 
to us.” 

The JMeteors, who were always active when there was 
work to be done, shot forth on their errands. 

“How long do you suppose it will be before the Equator 
can catch the Evening Star?” asked Billy. 

“It all depends on whether or not they are both going 
in the same direction,” replied Jack Frost. 

Billy smiled. “Of course,” he said, “if they were going 
in opposite directions he never would catch her.” 

“Wrong,” said Jack Frost. “Supposing I started for 
the South Pole and you started for the North Pole, and 
we both kept on going in the same direction after we got 
there, what would happen?” 

Billy thought a minute. “Oh, I see!” he cried; “we’d 
meet on the opposite side of the earth.” 

“We would,” said Jack Frost, “if we didn’t stop on 


THE COMPASS 


75 


the way. The Equator has probably gone in the opposite 
direction, intending to meet the Evening Star on the other 
side of the world. That would surprise her.” 

‘Tn that case,” said Nimbus, “Jack Frost and I had 
better start off in opposite directions and see which gets 
to the other side of the world first. The one who does can 
put a stop to this chase.” 

“But we don't know just which j)art of the other side 
they’re going to meet on,” objected Jack Frost. 

“We can take a chance,” said Nimbus. “That’s what 
the ^Meteors will have to do, and we can beat them, because 
we have no tails to drag after us.” 

“What shall I do?” said Billy. 

“You can stay here and get him if he happens to pass,” 
said Nimbus. 

Billy was a little troubled about this, but he was not the 
boy to admit that he was frightened, and, though his mouth 
trembled a trifle and he winked a little more rapidl}^ than 
usual, he kept a brave face as his two friends each called 
a cloud out of the sky and sailed away upon it. 

He had stood there but a few minutes when he heard 
the tinkling of a bell a little distance away. At first it 
rang slowly and at long intervals, then faster and faster, 
till at length it sounded like the triangle the man played in 
one corner of the orchestra in the theater at home. 

Thinking there could be no harm in finding out where 
the sound came from, as the Equator was as little likely 


76 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


to alight in one place as another, he listened very carefully, 
then proceeded slowly toward the tinkling sound. 

Soon he came out into the very clearing where the trolley 
car had reached the earth, and there stood the trolley car 
with the face of the Equine Ox protruding from the front 
door and wearing a very unhappy expression. 

Confronting the Equine Ox was the conductor, who was 
waving his hands and shouting, while the motorman was 
stooping over, a little way off, gathering up a smooth round 
stone about the size of an egg. 

JNIeanwhile the tinkle of the bell sounded continuously, 
and the Equine Ox wriggled and writhed as if very much 
displeased with his imprisonment. 

The motorman being nearest to him, Billy addressed 
him: 

“What are you going to do with that stone?” he inquired. 

“Throw it at the Ox,” replied the motorman. 

“Oh, don’t do that,” pleaded Billy. “You might hurt 
him. And he isn’t doing anything bad, I’m sure.” 

“He isn’t, isn’t he?” shouted the motorman. “Ain’t he 
lashing his tail?” 

“What of that?” asked Billy. “All animals lash their 
tails except bears and saddle horses and fox-hunters, which 
haven’t any tails to lash.” 

“But his tail is caught in the bell rope,” said the motor- 
man, hurling the stone at the Equine Ox. The stone broke 
a window, and although it did not reach its target, it 



Confronting the Equine Ox was the conductor, waving his hand and shoutin 








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THE COMPASS 


77 


annoyed the creature so that he struggled more frantically 
than before, and the bell jingled furiously. 

“Stop,’’ cried the conductor excitedly. “It’s getting too 
expensive for me.” 

“Expensive!” said Billy in amazement. 

“Yes, expensive. Every time he wiggles his tail 
that way he rings up a fare, and he’s rung up more 
than thirty-seven dollars’ worth already. I’ve counted 
’em all.” 

Billy understood why the motorman and the conductor 
were so worried. The tail of the Ox had become entangled 
in the rope that led to the fare register, and every tinkle 
of the bell meant a fare recorded. 

At first he was shocked to think of this wasteful extrava- 
gance, but then he recollected that as the car was not on a 
regular run the fares couldn’t really be counted against the 
motorman and the conductor. 

They were not at all certain of this when he explained 
it to them. 

“We’re going back, ain’t we?” asked the conductor. 

“Oh, yes,” said Billy, “I’m sure we are.” 

“Well, when we run the car into the barn they’ll charge 
me with these fares,” said the conductor. “The car will 
have been away so long that they’ll be disgusted if it has 
not earned any money.” 

“I tell you,” said Billy; “when Nimbus comes back I’ll 
get him to enchant the register so it will only charge up the 


78 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


fares you have really collected. That will make it all 
right.” 

This appeased the motorman and the conductor, and 
in answer to Billy’s questions they explained how the 
Equine Ox got into the car. 

When they were left alone with him he had behaved very 
badh% rolling on the ground and laughing very heartily, 
which proved, as they had been told by Nimbus, that he 
was furiously angry. 

Then he began to sing, and at last he actually started 
to run away. 

But they prevented this by tying the trolley rope 
tightly to his horn and securing him to the car, and 
then, fearing that the rope might break, they hit upon a 
stratagem. 

They talked eagerly about the comforts and coolness 
of the inside of the car, until the curiosity of the Equine 
Ox outran his discretion and he insisted upon going in. 

Knowing that he was governed Iw contraries, they tried 
to prevent his doing so. This, as they expected, made him 
all the more determined, and he forced his way past them 
into the car. 

But once inside he found it impossible to get out, and 
then it was that he began the lashing of his tail, which had 
resulted in the ringing up of so many fares. 

Billy agreed with the motorman and the conductor that 
the best place for the Equine Ox was in the trolley car, 


THE COMPASS 


79 


for if he tried too hard to escape they had only to shut 
the door to keep him there. 

So Billy sat down and told the trolley men everything* 
that had happened since he left them, and they became as 
excited as he was about the chances of the Evening Star’s 
escape from the Equator. 

‘T wish I had the Equator in reach of my crank handle,’^ 
said the motorman. 

“I wish,” said Billy, “that the Evening Star would come 
past here right now. We’d get Nimbus to enchant the 
trolley car again, and away we’d go back home with her.” 

“Sure,” said the conductor. “We could use her for a 
headlight on the way home.” 

They were all busily discussing what could be done to 
secure the Evening Star against the Equator when they 
had her in Billy’s home when a light shone above the trees 
and soon a Meteor dropped among them. 

“I just met the Equator going west-nor’west,” he said. 
“Where’s Nimbus?” 

“In that case,” bellowed the Equine Ox, “I’ll go sou’- 
sou’east,” and he walked calmly away in that direction, 
tearing out the forward end of the trolley car as he went. 





“Soon a Meteor dropped among them” 











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THE TRAIL OF THE RUNAWAY 



CHAPTER IX 


THE TRAIL OF THE RUNAWAY 

W ITH wild cries the conductor and the motorman 
ran after the Equine Ox, but although he ap- 
peared to be walking, he went at a tremendous 
speed, and soon they were compelled to give up the 
chase. 

“Oh! Oh!” wailed Billy, who was terribly distressed at 
the escape of the Equine Ox, “I wish there was something 
I could do. But I am so small that I am absolutely use- 
less around here.” 

There was a cracking of branches close at hand, and to 
Billy’s astonishment and delight the Equine Ox reap- 
peared. 

“Do you think it is unlucky to be small, Billy?” he in- 
quired. 

The motorman and the conductor started forward, but 
the Equine Ox lowered his horns. 

“Never mind that now,” he said to them. “I will give 
you due notice of my next movements, and on the whole 
I don’t think I will go at all. I don’t think the Equator 
will come this way, at all events.” 

83 


84 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


The conductor and the motorman still advanced, but 
Billy said: 

‘T think the Equine Ox is speaking the truth. His eyes 
look honest.” 

“My eyes are honest,” said the Equine Ox. “They 
never deceived me in my life. But as I was saying, why 
are you so sorry that you’re small?” 

“Because,” said Billy, “I can’t be of any help when 
things happen.” 

“Listen,” said the Equine Ox, and throwing back his 
head he sang : 


THE MELANCHOLY STAR 

“A foolish little star I knew, quite petulant and peevish grew, 
And all because he thought he was 
Compelled to shine unheeded. 

‘I know,’ he sighed, ‘that I am small, and so I shouldn’t shine at 
all; 

It isn’t fair to keep me where 
I plainly am not needed.’ 


“So every night, from dark till dawn, dejectedly he carried on, 
And pined and sighed and whined and cried 
In this dyspeptic fashion. 

In bitterness and discontent his poor defenseless rays he rent, 
And tore his hair, till sore despair 
Became his ruling passion. 



* * Listen, said the Equine Ox , and throwing back his head , he sang 






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THE TRAIL OF THE RUNAWAY 85 


“Of course when one thus falls a prey to melancholy, night and day, 
And merely moans and mopes and groans. 

He’ll grow weak-minded from it; 

And as this star became more blue, and thinking of his sorrows 
grew 

Each day more sad, he soon went mad. 

And turned into a comet. 

“Now little girls who fancy they are always in grown people’s way. 
And little chaps who think perhaps 
They’re not appreciated ; 

Of course will surely never share the fate this starlet had to bear. 
But still they need perhaps to heed 
This tale that I’ve related. 

“For if they do not mind at all because they happen to be small, 
They soon will see their tasks will be 
Made wonderfully lighter; 

And when a child is gay of heart, and always gladly does his part, 
And never sighs and never cries. 

He makes the whole world brighter.” 

“I’ll try not to be sorry any more,” said Billy, when the 
song was finished. 

“That’s right,” said the Equine Ox; “and now, if the 
gentlemen don’t mind, I’d like to go back into the trolley 
car. It fitted me perfectly, and it was such fun ringing 
that bell.” 

“The trolley car’s broke,” said the conductor. “And if 
it wasn’t I wouldn’t take a chance on having you ring up 
any more fares.” 


86 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


“Very well,” said the Equine Ox, “then we might as 
well sit quietly and await the reports of the Meteors. 
They’ll be coming in very soon now.” 

But it was not a INIeteor who first arrived. It was Jack 
Frost and Nimbus, coming in from opposite directions 
almost at the same time. Both had been clear around the 
world, they said, and neither had seen a sign of the Equator 
or the Evening Star. 

“I suppose,” said Billy, when this dismal report was 
received, “that we ought to notify the Sun.” 

“I can’t notify him,” said Jack Frost. “He and I are 
utter strangers.” 

“I sent the Rays to notify him,” said Nimbus. “But I 
don’t think it will do any good. He can only travel so 
fast anyway, not more than a million miles a minute, and 
that would not do any good.” 

“What is there to do, then?” inquired Bill}^ discon- 
solately. 

Hardly were the words out of his mouth when a jNIeteor 
came dashing in among them. 

“Any news?” asked Jack Frost. 

“Lots of it,” said the Meteor. “News is happening 
every minute.” 

“He means any news of the Evening Star or the 
Equator,” said Nimbus. 

“No,” said the Meteor. “In fact I had forgotten all 
about them in the excitement.” 


THE TRAIL OF THE RUNAWAY 87 


“What excitement?” demanded Nimbus. 

“Why,” said the Meteor, “the most astonishing things 
are happening. In Chicago grapefruits are growing on 
Wabash Avenue, monkeys are swarming up the Tribune 
Building on Madison Street, and they are raising tobacco 
and watermelons on Drexel Boulevard.” 

“Gracious,” said Jack Frost, “and this is the middle of 
January! What can that mean?” 

“Great news,” sang out a voice overhead, and another 
Meteor settled in among them. 

“Snow has all melted in Duluth,” he said, “and there is 
an unprecedented sale of palmleaf fans all through that 
part of the country.” 

Before any one could express surprise at this astonishing 
information a third Meteor and a fourth alighted. 

“It is ninety degrees in the shade in Winnipeg,” said 
the third Meteor, “and they are picking cocoanuts in Que- 
bec. The baseball season has opened in Iceland.” 

“Hotter still in Norway,” said the fourth Meteor, who 
had just arrived; “oldest inhabitant never remembers such 
sultry weather. Eskimos are now wearing mo^uito nets 
instead of furs, and they’re catching crocodiles in the Arctic 
Ocean. The icebergs have begun to boil.” 

“This won’t do!” cried Jack Frost excitedly. “All the 
work that I’ve been at for centuries is being undone. I’ll 
soon have to organize a syndicate to attend to my business 
if this keeps up. Whatever can have happened?” 


88 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


Another Meteor came in just then with still more 
tidings. 

“Great schools of whales are passing Cape Nome,” he 
said, “all going north. They’re picking strawberries off 
the tundras there, and they are advertising hot springs for 
rheumatism in a glacier.” 

Nimbus, who had been sitting with knitted brows, sud- 
denly leaped to his feet, and slapped the conductor on the 
back with such violence that that gentleman fell forward 
against the Equine Ox. 

“I know what it is,” shouted Nimbus. “The Equator is 
up there. That’s what’s making all this trouble!” 

“Then far be it from me to stay here,” said Jack Frost, 
preparing to start at once. “I’m not going to have all my 
good icebergs and glaciers melted like ice cream. It took 
me countless centuries to make some of them.” 

“Oh, never mind your old icebergs and glaciers,” said 
Nimbus. “The point is that we’ve located the Equator 
and we can stop him before he catches the Evening Star. 
He can only thaw a radius of a few miles at one time, now 
that he’s shrunk so, so you don’t need to worry at all about 
his undoing your work.” 

“Well, anyway, we must go up there,” said Jack Frost. 

“We certainly must,” said Nimbus, “and as soon as pos- 
sible. I expect Aurora Borealis will be reporting him at 
any time now.” 

At that exact moment the sky lighted up with pink 


THE TRAIL OF THE RUNAWAY 


splendor that waved and flickered and danced over the 
heavens. 

“There she is now,” cried Nimbus. “Come, let us be 
off!” 

“Please,” said Billy, who was intensely excited, “may I 
go, too? I should dearly love to help catch him.” 

“Why, yes, I guess so,” said Nimbus. “I’ll enchant the 
trolley car again and we’ll all go in that.” 

The trolley car had been very badly damaged by the 
Equine Ox, but Nimbus merely tapped it with his wand 
and it became whole again. The motorman regarded him 
open-mouthed. 

“Wouldn’t he be a wonder in a repair shop?” he ex- 
claimed. 

“I guess she’ll hold together now,” said Nimbus. “Come 
on. Jack Frost; come on, Billy,” and he led the way into 
the car. 

The conductor and the motorman took their places, and 
the Equine Ox at the last moment crowded into the rear 
door. There was scarcely room for him, but Nimbus did 
not care to lose any time in putting him out. 

The car was speedily got under way and soon was mer- 
rily sailing along in the direction of the North Pole. 



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WHERE NIGHT IS SIX MONTHS LONG 





CHAPTER X 


WHERE NIGHT IS SIX MONTHS LONG 

‘‘ T T IS a good thing that both the Evening Star and 
the Equator shine,” said Billy. “We can find them 
so easily in the dark.” 

“But there isn’t going to be any dark,” said Jack Frost. 

“Oh, but there will be at night!” said Billy confidently. 
“It is always dark at night. It has to be or you wouldn’t 
know it was night.” 

“But there won’t be any night for six months where we 
are going,” said Jack Frost. “There never is at the Xorth 
Pole.” 

“Gracious!” said Billy; “that must be dreadful. And 
do the days last for six months, too?” 

“To be sure they do. If you ask a boy to come to your 
house to spend the afternoon at the Xorth Pole he stays 
for three months.” 

“It must be terrible when the baby has the colic 
all night,” said Billy thoughtfully. “That happens 
often at our house, and Papa has to walk the floor with 
him.” 

“I don’t know much about babies,” said Jack Frost, 

93 


94 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


'‘but I suppose they would stop crying before morning. 
JNIaybe they’d be satisfied crying for a month or two if they 
weren’t interrupted.” 

“There’s an iceberg,” said Nimbus, who had been 
keeping a lookout. “We ought to he getting there in 
a little while now. We are running into a dawn any- 
way.” 

To the southward Billy noticed a faint grayish streak 
in the sky, and soon he could see the white caps that the 
breakers always wear to keep their heads warm on windy 
days. 

They were going very fast. Little white specks that 
seemed to be fiying past beneath them he now saw were 
icebergs, and by-and-by these began to appear in great 
numbers, dotting the sea like schools of tiny islands in all 
directions. 

Although the light was growing brighter all the time, he 
was still aware of a faint flickering glow to the northward, 
and this his friends told him was Aurora Borealis flashing 
the news that the Equator and the Evening S.tar were still 
in the neighborhood. 

“I wish this thing would hurry,” said Nimbus impa- 
tiently. “We are not going more than five hundred miles 
an hour now. Mere dawdling, I call it.” 

“Crawling,” said Jack Frost. 

“I wonder how long it will be before we catch up to 
them,” said Billy. 


WHERE NIGHT IS SIX MONTHS LONG 95 


“Can’t tell,” said Nimbus. “Depends on whether we are 
going in their direction or not.” 

Suddenly Jack Frost gave a roar of rage. 

“Look there !” he shouted. “Just look there. It took me 
centuries to make that glacier, and now look at it. Isn’t 
that a shame?” 

Below them, where a range of snowy mountains skirted 
the sea, they saw a long dark streak which, when more 
closely observed, proved to be a mountain area entirely 
bared of snow and leading like a great broad road to the 
north. 

“That’s what that wretched Equator has been doing,” 
said Jack Frost sadly. “He’s spoiled a glacier that was a 
work of art— almost my masterpiece. I suppose when I 
get up to the North Pole I’ll find he has melted that. And 
if he has, it’ll spoil. You cannot possibly keep a North 
Pole unless you keep it on ice.” 

“But,” cried Nimbus, who plainly did not share 
Jack Frost’s annoyance, “we can trace him now. 
That is where he must have lighted. Let’s go down 
there and see if we can find any trace of the Evening 
Star.” 

He had hardly spoken when the car began rapidly to 
descend, and presently it was resting on a mountain top 
between two tall ice cliffs. 

Jack Frost looked at them ruefully. 

“That was my glacier,” he said. “JNIy beautiful glacier 


96 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


— one of the best I ever built. And now look at it. Ruined, 
utterly ruined.” 

Nimbus, who had been searching over the rocks, uttered 
a cry of pleasure. 

“Look here,” he said. “The Equator got here first. The 
Evening Star did not come till later. So she is probably 
safe, after all.” 

“How do you know that?” said Jack Frost. 

“See,” said Nimbus. “When he got here and cleaned 
the snow off” — Jack Frost grunted disgustedly — “the 
flowers began to spring up. Here are daisies and butter- 
cups and forget-me-nots and violets and trilliums, all grow- 
ing where he turned the heat on.” 

“I don’t see that that proves anything,” said Jack Frost. 

“But it does,” said Nimbus, “whether you see it or not. 
After they grew and blossomed somebody came and picked 
lots of them. You can see wdiere they have been snipped 
off.” 

“Well?” said Jack Frost. 

“It must have been the Evening Star,” continued Nim- 
bus. “She’s very fond of flowers, you know, and nobody 
else could get here.” 

“Humph!” said Jack Frost; “there may be something in 
that. But whether there is or not, I must rebuild this 
glacier, or at least start it. I’ll begin by cutting down these 
flowers.” 

“Oh, please don’t!” said Billy. “They look so pretty 


WHERE NIGHT IS SIX MONTHS LONG 97 


here among the snowdrifts. Let them just stay for a while 
anyway.” 

“All right,” said Jack Frost, “for a while, if it will please 
you. But I want you to understand that they are in the 
way of the loveliest glacier that ” 

“Never mind your glacier,” shouted Nimbus. “I’ve 
found the track of the Evening Star, and she is going east 
instead of north.” 

He had climbed up a crevice in one of the ice cliffs and 
was studying the surface of a thin covering of new-fallen 
snow. 

There before him were the dainty footprints of the 
Evening Star, and here and there a blossom appa- 
rently fallen from her bouquet lay scattered along the 
tracks. 

“Now,” said Nimbus, “we will separate. Billy, you and 
I will go after the Evening Star, and you, J ack Frost, can 
follow the open trail of the Equator and see if you can find 
him. If you do find him, be sure not to let him get 
away.” 

“How about us?” said the motorman severely. 

“Oh, I had forgotten you!” said Nimbus. 

“We hadn’t,” said the motorman. 

“Then you’d better,” said the Equine Ox, sticking his 
head out of one of the windows of the car. “Always re- 
member yourself last.” 

“I don’t care to hear anything more from you,” said the 


98 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


motorman. “It’s against the rules for a beast to talk, any- 
way.” 

“Oh, I don’t know about that!” said a voice from a little 
peak just above them. 

“A hear,” said Bilh% astonished. 

“Why not?” said the voice, as a great white Polar Bear 
threaded his way down the slope toward the trolley 
car. 

But the motorman and the conductor seemed to think 
there were many reasons why not. They hastily sought 
shelter inside the car and closed the door after them, while 
the Equine Ox, with a snort of terror, pulled his head in so 
quickly that he brought away a part of the sash with his 
horns. 

“My!” said Billy; “I’m afraid that bear will get them 
or us.” 

“Pie’ll have to eat the side of the trolley car before he 
gets them,” said Nimbus. 

“And by that time,” added Jack Frost, “he’ll he so full 
he won’t have any more room for them.” 

So, leaving the bear busily gnawing at the sash board of 
the car. Nimbus, Jack Frost and Billy proceeded afoot on 
their quest. 

Jack Frost set out on the Equator’s trail at a prodigious 
pace, muttering to himself at each fresh discovery of a 
ruined glacier or melted icefield. 

Billy and Nimbus proceeded more slowly, for the track 


WHERE NIGHT IS SIX MONTHS LONG 99 


of the Evening Star was not always distinct, and it was 
plain that, here and there, when the going was hard, she 
had sailed over the obstructing cliffs. 

At the end of an hour the track disappeared altogether, 
nor could they find it, search as they might. 

“Where do you suppose she has gone?” inquired Billy. 

“Up,” said Nimbus briefly. “Probably saw the Equator 
coming.” 

As he was speaking they heard a familiar voice, and Jack 
Frost hailed them. 

“Hello!” said Nimbus; “what are you doing over here?” 

“This is where the track brought me,” replied Jack 
Frost, and Billy and Nimbus saw that the trail through the 
snow w’hich had been melted by the Equator was within a 
few yards of them. 

“That explains why the Evening Star stopped walk- 
ing,” said Nimbus. “She saw the Equator headed 
over this way, and decided she had better travel a little 
faster.” 

It had grown quite light, so that the flashes of Aurora 
could no longer seem to guide them, for they had quite 
faded in the brighter dawn. 

As Billy was very tired. Jack Frost and Nimbus 
agreed to sit down for a few minutes while he rested. 
In the mean time they sent a Meteor back for the trol- 
ley car so that they might continue their journey more 
easily. 


100 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


“Walking is foolish, anyway,” said Jack Frost. “Why 
any one who can fly should ever walk is a mystery to me.” 

“Birds do,” said Billy. 

“Yes,” said Jack Frost, “and sometimes they overdo it, 
like the awkward auk. Did you ever hear about him?” 

“No,” said Billy, “I never did, but I should love to.” 

“It’s a sad story,” said Jack Frost, “but here it is”: 

“Two excellent wings had the awkward auk, 

But he was never known to fly. 

Preferring a rambling, shambling walk. 

And the walruses wondered why ; 

Yet there seems no reason that on this point 
Their minds should have been so hazy. 

For it’s clear to me as a thing can be 
That the awkward auk was lazy. 

“Though he might have skirted the rainbow’s rim 
Or circled above the seas. 

The only gait that appealed to him 
Was one of reposeful ease; 

He strutted about o’er the crags and cliffs 
In a most ungainly fashion. 

And the fowls that flew he was prone to view 
With a kind of cold compassion. 

“But it chanced one night that a hungry fox 
Got a look at the awkward auk. 

Who was strolling about on the spray-washed rocks 
With his usual clumsy walk ; 


WHERE NIGHT IS SIX MONTHS LONG 101 


He made a dash for the startled bird, 

And the auk with a frown of fright 
On his furrowed brow, observed that now 
Was a crisis that called for flight. 

“He flapped and flopped with his feeble wings, 

And he wobbled his trifling tail; 

But, alas ! The long-neglected things 
Were not of the least avail; 

Which is why the fox, as he licked his chops 
With a gratified gusto, winked. 

And is why the auk who preferred to walk 
Has come to be quite extinct.” 

Jack Frost had just finished the last word when the 
Meteor came fl^dng up to them. 

“The Equator,” he said, “is at the North Pole, and the 
Evening Star is hiding under a glacier there. As soon 
as he melts the glacier ” 

“Everything will be lost,” finished Nimbus. “Come on,, 
there is not a moment to lose.” 

“I’ll be there in a minute,” said Jack Frost, “but I’ve 
got to start those melted glaciers first; you know that’s 
my job, and I dare not neglect it.” 

“All right,” said Nimbus. ‘‘Billy and I will go on with- 
out you. Come on, Billy.” 

Billy started to follow him, but Nimbus, in his excite- 
ment, had completely forgotten the little boy. He struck 
up a pace that Billy could not possibly keep, and soon 


102 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


was out of hearing — a tiny speck on the vast white snow- 
field that stretched ahead toward the horizon. 

“I guess I’ll have to go with you, Jack Frost,” said 
Billy, turning sadly toward the spot where that worthy 
had been standing. 

But Jack Frost had vanished utterly, and there was 
Billy deserted on a great Arctic snowfield, just at the most 
exciting moment of the chase. 


THE END OF THE CHASE 






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CHAPTER XI 


THE END OF THE CHASE 

I T MUST be admitted that there were tears in the little 
boy’s eyes, tears that overflowed and made damp, 
messy places on his wide shirt-collar before they could 
be ordered back where they belonged. 

They were tears of disappointment rather than fear, 
although certain thoughts of bears and walruses and even 
great sharp-billed Arctic owls insisted on following one 
another very rapidly through his mind. 

But when five minutes passed and no bears nor other 
terrifying creatures appeared Billy began to take heart. 

“They’re sure to miss me,” he said aloud, for it was com- 
forting to hear a sound, even if it were only that of his own 
voice. “And when they do miss me they’ll find me. They 
are fairies, and they can find anything.” 

“Anything but the Evening Star,” said a deep voice be- 
side him. “They haven’t found her yet, remember.” 

Billy jumped almost out of his shoes, he was so startled, 
but he looked bravely in the direction of the voice just the 
same, and to his amazement he saw the Equine Ox standing 
knee deep in snow and switching his tail vigorously as he 

105 


106 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


had learned to switch it in the tropics where the flies are 
bad. It made Billy laugh to see him do it in the Arctic 
Circle. But the Equine Ox said it was a warming process. 

‘T repeat,” said the Equine Ox, “that they haven’t found 
the Evening Star. That is chiefly because they refused to 
ask me to help them.” 

“But,” said Billy, “you are supposed to be back there 
with the conductor and the motorman.” 

“They were not interesting,” said the Equine Ox. “No 
doubt they are very worthy jDeople, but they are not inter- 
esting. They talked about pie and cheese sandwiches and 
fried beefsteak and other things I do not care for, so I came 
up here. I knew I would have to, anyway, before they 
found the Evening Star.” 

“How in the world did you get here?” asked Billy. 

“I didn’t,” said the Equine Ox. 

“But you’re here, so you must have got here,” insisted 
Billy. 

“You asked,” said the Equine Ox 2)lacidh% “how in the 
world I got here. I didn’t get here in the world. I got 
here out of the world. I came b}^ way of the Big 
Dipper.” 

“Oh!” said Billy; “I su2:)pose I see. Anyway, it would 
not be 2^olite to keej) on asking you questions, even if I 
don’t understand.” 

“An Equine Ox,” said the other, “can go anywhere he 
pleases, on the world or off of it. I hadn’t seen the Big 


THE END OF THE CHASE 


107 


Dipper for some time, so I went up there, took a drink and 
came down here. I know of nothing easier to do than that, 
do you?” 

Billy knew of a great many things that would have been 
easier for him to do; so many, in fact, that it would be 
too great a task to enumerate them, so he kept silent. 

‘T do hope you can help them find the Evening Star,” he 
said at length. 

“Certainly I can,” said the Equine Ox. “There she is 
now.” 

“Where?” cried Billj^ 

“Over across the lake on the other side of the moun- 
tain” — and the Equine Ox pointed with his tail to the 
southward. “Just now she is frozen in a glacier.” 

“]Mercy!” said Billy; “and there is no one to help us to 
get her out.” 

“Unless you count us,” said the conductor. “But I sup- 
pose, of course, you don’t.” 

He was standing right at Bill3"’s elbow, and directly 
behind him was the motorman. 

“The Equine Ox ran away on us again,” explained the 
conductor, noticing Billy’s astonishment. 

“Ran away on you?” inquired Billy. 

“He means off of them,” said the Equine Ox. “He’s 
dreadfully ungrammatical.” 

“Don’t you call me names,” said the conductor threat- 
eningly. 


108 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


“Please don’t quarrel,” said Billy. “The Evening Star 
is in that glacier over yonder, and we must get her out of 
it or she’ll freeze to death.” 

“Then let’s,” said the motorman. 

Billy excitedly hurried to the glacier, and the others fol- 
lowed as fast as they could. 

It was plain that somebody was confined within 
its green depths, for a form could be distinctly seen 
by the whole party, who fiattened their noses against 
the cliff-like side of the glacier and gazed eagerly 
into it. 

“I think you had better begin to batter in the ice with 
your horns,” said the motorman, “and we’ll follow you up 
and throw out the loose ice.” 

The Equine Ox, thus addressed, fell energetically to 
work and soon had broken a fair-sized hole in the ice 
wall. 

Into it dashed the conductor and the motorman, and they 
threw out the fragments of ice broken off by the sharp 
horns, while Billy, unable to do anything or to find any 
place to w^ork at all, stood and wrung his hands in im- 
patience. 

It was a hard task, but the three kept steadily at it, and 
in a very little while only a thin wall separated them from 
the object of their search. 

Suddenly the last film of ice was broken through, and 
then they all fell back in blank amazement, for it 


THE END OF THE CHASE 


109 


was not the Evening Star at all who came forth, 
but Jack Frost, looking rather chilly and very much 
ashamed. 

“Jack Frost!” cried the Equine Ox. “Jack Frost, by 
all that’s astonishing!” 

“Well, I never!” said the conductor. 

“Me neither,” said the motorman, “and many of ’em.” 

“How in the world did you get in there. Jack Frost?” 
asked Billy. 

“Well, I hate to admit it,” said Jack Frost, “but I froze 
myself in. It was all a mistake.” 

“INIistakes will happen,” said the motorman. “The best 
of us are sure to make ’em at times. I hate to run over 
dogs, but sometimes I do it.” 

“You see,” said Jack Frost, “I was in a hurry to rebuild 
that glacier, and I got so interested I didn’t leave myself 
any place to get out till it was all done.” 

“But why didn’t you build it from the outside?” asked 
Billy. 

“That’s the way men build things,” said Jack Frost. 
“It’s different with us Nature people. Did you ever see 
a tree built from the outside? Or a tomato?” 

Billy couldn’t remember that he ever had. 

“And now,” continued Jack Frost, “I wish you would 
tell me the news. Has the Equator got the Evening Star 
yet?” 

“I don’t know,” said Billy. 


110 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


“Why haven’t you been finding out?” 

“Look here, Jack Frost,” said the Equine Ox impa- 
tiently, “that’s a nice question for you to be asking. If we 
had been finding out, what would have become of 
you?” 

“I suppose, of course, you knew it was I who was in 
here when you started digging?” said Jack Frost. 

“Ho, ho!” roared the motorman. “He’s got the critter 
on that one.” 

The Equine Ox tossed his horns indifferently and 
stalked away. 

“Where are you going?” asked Billy. 

“Back to the place where the Equator ought to be,” said 
the Equine Ox. “I’m tired of this business. I wish I’d 
never come.” 

“He means that he wishes he’d never came,” said the 
conductor to the motorman. “Somehow that sentiment 
hits me — hits me hard.” 

“It hits me like a pile driver,” said the motorman. “Let’s 
go back with him.” 

“Hurry, if you are coming,” said the Equine Ox, who 
had overheard them. “I’ll give you a lift as far as — where 
do you live, anyway?” 

“Suburbia,” said the conductor. 

“All right,” said the Equine Ox; “climb on my back 
and we’ll be in Suburbia in time for supper. Jack Frost, 
you can send Yimbus back with the car.” 


THE END OF THE CHASE 


111 


“All right,” cried Jack Frost after them, “as soon as we 
find the Equator.” 

For a little while Billy, standing beside Jack Frost, 
watched them as they galloped off toward where the blue 
of the sky met the white of the snowfields. The Equine 
Ox seemed not to mind the load he carried, and just as 
Billy turned away the conductor and the motorman were 
lighting their pipes preparatory to settling down for a 
comfortable ride. Then Jack Frost spoke to him and Billy 
saw them no more. 

“What is that on the snow mountain over there?” Jack 
Frost was saying. 

“Let’s go and see,” said Billy, even before he turned 
to look. 

The snow mountain was only a little way off, and upon 
its summit some dark object seemed to move as if flutter- 
ing in the wind. 

“You go ahead,” said Jack Frost, “and I’ll be with you 
in a minute. I forgot to stop up that hole you fellows dug 
in the glacier. If the Equator ever gets in there he’ll de- 
stroy the whole thing again in a second.” 

“All right,” said Billy; “but don’t be long, for I may 
need help.” 

Jack Frost turned back, and Billy set out alone for the 
snow mountain, and soon got close enough to get a good 
view. 

At first he was overjoyed, for upon the mountain he saw 


112 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


the Evening Star, and he felt that the long quest for her 
was as good as ended. 

A few steps further, however, brought him to the brink 
of a circular abyss, too wide to leap over and far too deep 
to fall into. It shut him off completely from the peak that 
rose in its center. 

“Jack Frost will be able to make an ice bridge across it 
when he comes,” said Billy, so he patiently sat down to 
wait. 

In another instant he cried out in alarm. 

Overhead sounded a crackling and snapping, and swiftl}^ 
the Equator dropped down from a great height and began 
to hover directly over the head of the Evening Star. 

Already the ice under her had begun to melt. Soon it 
would melt away altogether and then Billy knew that the 
Equator, kept at a distance now by fear of the cold snow, 
would fall upon her and bear her away, and perhaps turn 
her into a Comet right before his horrified eyes. 


ACROSS THE RAINBOW 





CHAPTER XII 


ACROSS THE RAINBOW 

O H, IF I could only get over there!” moaned Billy. 
He had not stopped to think what he would do 
if he were there. His eagerness to help the Even- 
ing Star was so keen that he was almost ready to leap the 
abyss before him. He even went to the brink and tried to 
calculate his chances of getting across with a running 
jump, but he saw that the best jumper in the world could 
not have got half way over before he would have tumbled 
into the icy depths below. So, with a sigh, he sat down 
to think. 

Billy did not mean to cry — he never meant to cry — but 
the sight of the Equator hovering so closely over the Even- 
ing Star and melting down the snow mountain like a wax 
taper brought an unbidden tear or two to his eyes, and they 
rolled slowly down his cheeks. 

One of them fell on his stocking, where it quickly froze, 
and Billy, looking at it disconsolately, observed that it 
shone with the hues of the rainbow in the light thrown off 
by the Equator. 

Suddenly he leaped to his feet, dancing for joy. 

115 


116 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


“The Rays!” he cried, “they will build me a bridge!” 

And he called them by name one after another: 

“Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and 
Red!” 

Instantly the little people stood before him, and Red, 
who was their spokesman, asked him what he desired. 

“A bridge!” cried Billy. “A bridge as quickly as you 
can.” 

It was the work of a second. The little people all sprang 
into the air together and lo! in front of Billy stretched a 
slender rainbow bridge, leading from his feet to the snow 
mountain on which was the imprisoned Evening Star. 
And at each end was a great pot of yellow gold as large 
as a preserve kettle. 

Bravely Billy started to cross the bridge. It trembled 
violently in the strong light, as rainbows will, for they are 
flimsy things at best. Billy hesitated. He was not fright- 
ened, but it was so hard to keep his balance. 

And then he heard a cheery shout behind him, and up 
came Jack Frost running as fast as his legs could carry 
him, and fairly panting with excitement. 

“It’s all right, Billy, go ahead!” he called, laying a 
steadying hand on the rainbow, which at once hardened 
under his cold. 

> Thus encouraged Billy proceeded. As he went on he 
noticed that the snow mountain had ceased to melt. In- 
deed, it was beginning slowly to rise in the air again, thanks 


ACROSS THE RAINBOW 


11*7 


to the influence of Jack Frost, who was freezing the water 
far faster than the Equator could melt it. 

Up, up it went, its peak narrowing to a needle point. 
Above it the Equator, unused to the cold, shriveled and 
shrank. Now he was the size of a hoop, now of a dough- 
nut, presently he was scarcely larger than a ring. 

“Slide!” shouted a familiar voice behind Billy. “Slide, 
Evening Star, slide for your life!” 

The Evening Star heard the voice, and she, as well as 
Billy, recognized it as the voice of Nimbus. 

“The snow mountain is the North Pole!” cried Nimbus. 
“I just asked an Eskimo where it was and he pointed it 
out. I came just in time, didn’t I?” 

The last question was addressed to the Evening Star, 
who had followed his advice and slid right into his arms. 

“I jumped the gully,” said Nimbus, pointing to the 
abyss. “There wasn’t time to come over the bridge. And 
now I think we’ve got the Equator where we want him.” 

“Where do you want me?” snarled the Equator. 

“Over this Pole,” said Nimbus, and as he spoke he slid 
up the North Pole as a sailor slides down a rope, grasped 
the Equator and impaled him upon it. 

He rolled him down and down until Jack Frost could 
reach him and help hold him, and the Equator, feeling him- 
self stretched like an elastic over the conical snow peak, 
saw that he was doomed to be rolled back around the earth 
and resume his post of duty in the center. 


118 


THE RUNAWAY EQUATOR 


‘T won’t do it,” he protested. “I’ll never do it!” 

He struggled and twisted in his efforts to escape, hut 
Nimbus held him fast, and Jack Frost kept him small by 
the clutch of his icy fingers. 

Billy danced up and down in his excitement, for once the 
Equator almost got away. 

“Go on down! Go on down!” shouted Billy. “My 
mother saj^s you are only an imaginary line, anyway!” 

^ * 

“Why, Billy,” said his mother, “look at the way you 
have eaten up your poor North Pole!” 

And at the sound of his mother’s voice Nimbus put a 
sunbeam into Billy’s mouth which tasted just like lemon 
candy. The clang of the enchanted trolley car sounded in 
his ears as the whole lot of his new friends stepped aboard 
and vanished from his sight. He looked around. But, in- 
stead of Nimbus and the Evening Star and Jack Frost 
and the Equator, he found his mother smiling down at him 
as he lay under the lilac bush, and the conductor was just 
ringing the bell for the trolley car to stop at the corner. 

THE END 









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